


(The Shortest Distance) Between Two Points

by ElegantFeatherDuster



Series: (The Shortest Distance) Between Two Points [1]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Thor (Movies)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-12
Updated: 2013-09-12
Packaged: 2017-12-26 08:36:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 47,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/963868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElegantFeatherDuster/pseuds/ElegantFeatherDuster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When an incorporeal version of Loki starts showing up in his workshop to chat at odd hours of the day, Tony thinks there’s a chance he’s going crazy. But when there’s a dead man face down in a pool of his own blood on Tony’s bedroom floor and mercurial silver ships floating over New York, Tony is forced to come to terms with several things—among them his growing interest in the God of Mischief who’s so very different from what he remembers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Tony offers him a drink and a threat.

It's pure bullshit and they both know it; he's bluffing to gain time, throwing in a little snark here and a lot of bravado there because he's Tony Stark—Iron Man—and he's not going to back down, not even when he's out of the suit and Loki's wielding a magic staff. It's a cruel thing, edged in razor sharp metal that shines in the light from the penthouse windows that Tony will be thrown out of in exactly one minute and fifty one seconds.

Loki's crazy, absolutely batshit insane, but maybe somewhere under all that madness there's a glint of respect for the mortal who wears his heart on the outside, his greatest weakness displayed like a trophy glowing in his chest, and who still dares to treat the god standing before him as his equal.

Tony makes a dick joke because he's feeling insufferable and if he lives past the next five minutes, maybe he'll have the honor of being the only human alive to have made a dirty joke to an angry deity’s face and survived the experience.

He gets thrown out that window sixteen seconds later by a snarling god who doesn't understand why Tony isn't already his slave and where this entire scheme went so utterly wrong.

Tony survives the fall that follows, but only just. Somehow, Loki is defeated and sent back to Asgard chained and muzzled like an animal, his brother standing beside him with sad eyes and a mouth twisted into an angry frown. Tony laughs and jumps into his newest car like a boy, watches Bruce fumble in after him, smiling too and happier than Tony has yet seem him in their short friendship and almost certainly happier than he's been in years.

The team goes their separate ways because they have their own business to attend to now and Tony thinks that the Battle of New York is over. They saved the world; they're heroes; they won. Go team.

Tony learned everything there is to know about thermonuclear astrophysics in one night. He made his first circuit board at four, his first engine at six, designed and built a fully functional robot with artificial intelligence before he was sixteen. He can solve advanced mathematics problems in seconds and drink nearly anyone under the table. But that doesn't mean he's right about everything.

+

Loki stands silently before the throne, head held high, as Odin lists his crimes for all to hear. Thor stands beside their mother, Frigga, their mirrored faces lined with grief for the monster they believed their son and brother. Loki finds himself compelled to look away so that he will not see his mother crying, will not have that image of her be the last thing he remembers. She must have known what he was from the beginning, but somehow, no matter how hard he tries, he can not bring himself to stop thinking of her as “mother.”

So he looks to Odin, refuses to bow his head and hardens his resolve. This is not a trial, it is a sentencing and there is nothing for him to say, no words Odin wishes to hear pass his lips. He does not deny his crimes, isn't sure there's a story in all the nine realms that the Aesir would believe.

In the end, he is sentenced and somehow it's almost lenient, far less severe than he would have predicted, less than he likely deserves. But then, he is a prince and the people of Asgard do not fully comprehend Odin's greatest lie: that a creature of frost and snow has walked among them for years, has sat at the high table and for a brief, fleeting moment, sat on the very throne of Asgard itself. There are rumors, many of them poisonous and worse than the truth, but no more than that.

He is sent to a glass prison far under the golden city and oh, how it reminds him of the cage the mortals had kept him in on Midgard. But unlike that cage, this one is made up especially for him and would not be so simple to escape even if he had anywhere to go.

They allow him a few books, a few implements of magic because the Aesir like to tell themselves that they are benevolent jailers, but Loki's mind is vast and it is never enough to keep him occupied. Nameless, faceless guards bring him food, clothing, blankets when he needs them and as the days turn into weeks Loki wonders if Odin's punishment isn't more fitting than he'd at first believed.

“There’s always a purpose to everything your father does,” his mother had told him as they talked over her husband's unmoving form. Perhaps Odin's final, terrible blow was not to torture, maim or kill his false son. He would not have poison dripped into his eyes and mouth until he screamed and wished for death. Very simply, Odin took away the very things Loki had always wanted most: his attention and any last chance he might have had at proving himself Thor's equal. Loki would be forgotten. He would fade into history and time without so much as a glorious death for the warrior-obsessed Aesir to remember him by.

The mortals might remember for a few decades at least before he fades again into their myths and legends, just another relic of the past. The green beast who'd beaten him until he lay broken might not remember—Loki was never able to fully gauge its intelligence—but he thinks that the pale, naked man inside it will. The woman drenched in red, his loyal, determined slave and the proud captain will remember how he'd tried and failed to destroy them. Most of all the man who'd stood against Loki at his most vulnerable and offered him a drink as if Loki weren't capable of wrenching off his miserable head with one hand. He'd seen the glimmer of pure fear in his eyes and doubts that mortal man will soon forget the feeling of falling.

Loki laughs then to think of the look on that man's face in the suspended moment between when Loki let go and gravity took hold, the moment when his bravery flashed into horrible, desperate terror. He'd understood then how very fragile his life was under Loki's fingers and been afraid. Loki revels in that fear, the same fear he sees in the flinch of the guards who come to deliver his food when he snarls at them like a feral beast just to watch what they’ll do. Anything is better than a vacuum and fear is a feeling he knows intimately in all the worst ways.

Loki isn't aware of his eyes closing as he slumps, unkempt and inelegant against the wall of his cell. It doesn't matter in any case if his eyes are open or closed because there is nothing new for him to see. But in the darkness behind his eyelids he notices for the first time the ghost of something, or perhaps more accurately, a spark of something waiting to be coaxed to life, blue and shining with energy.

+

Tony opens his eyes to the sound of Pepper climbing the stairs to his bedroom. He feels groggy, like he's been asleep too long and decides based on that and the taste in his mouth that it's probably long past noon.

He’d been dreaming about something strange; the memory is just barely there, right at the edge of consciousness, ready to slip away. He grasps at it, feels a surge of triumph as he very nearly catches it, and then Pepper asks JARVIS to remove the dark tint from the windows and early afternoon sun streams in to chase the memory away.

“Pepper,” he groans, sitting up and letting the expensive sheets pool in his lap.

“Do you know what time it is?” she asks. He can already tell from her tone he's missed something important.

“2:41pm,” JARVIS replies helpfully, saving Tony the trouble of admitting he doesn't. Pepper watches with disapproving eyes as he runs a sleepy hand through his hair and winces at the still-present headache that had driven him back into bed that morning. He vaguely remembers Pepper getting up, remembers kissing her goodbye and the sound of the coffee maker downstairs, but not much else.

“I asked you this morning if you were going to make it to the meeting and you said _yes_ , Tony,” Pepper sighs hopelessly, standing by the edge of the bed in a white dress that he's certain she picked out and he bought for some recent holiday. It looks good on her.

“JARVIS, shades back up to eighty percent,” he mutters in lieu of a reply. It feels a little like being hung over except he doesn't have any pleasant memories of the night before to console himself with. If anything, he has the crawling sensation along his spine that usually accompanies nightmares about New York.

“Ignore that order, JARVIS. Tony, you're getting up now. I brought the paperwork you were supposed to sign at the meeting because this proposal needs to be finalized today,” Pepper tells him firmly, pulling from an apparently endless supply of patience and experience with Tony's particular brand of inefficacy. He makes another sound that might, with a certain amount of imagination, be agreement and swings his legs over the edge of the bed.

Twenty minutes later he's showered and dressed in clean clothing, sitting on a tall stool at the breakfast bar with a large cup of coffee in his left hand and a digital pen in his right. The proposal information and contracts are spread out across the counter, organized into rectangles roughly the size of a standard sheet even though there's not a scrap of real paper in sight.

He's managed to get through about half of it so far, chatting with her about the specifics of a clause here or a paragraph there and doesn't even notice he's doodled something remarkably like Loki's horned helmet in the signature line of one page until they're almost done. Pepper raises one eyebrow at him when she notices, wiping it away and pushing the digital page back towards him to sign properly. A smile and a shrug are all he can offer in return as he adds the final signature because he can't quite explain it either.

“Do you want me to make breakfast?” he asks, leaning on the counter and smiling fondly at her.

“It's almost four.”

“An early dinner of breakfast food?” he amends, twirling the pen between his fingers now that he has no use for it.

“I have to get this paperwork sent out,” she sighs, returning his smile despite herself.

“You'll be done before I will. See you back here in ten,” he says, already getting to his feet and heading for the fridge. He hears one of her little put-upon sighs from behind him, always tinged with just a shade of affection, and pulls a carton of eggs out of the fridge as her heels click away across the floor.

“Tony? Is something wrong?” Pepper asks from beside him several minutes later, startling him out of the absent stare he'd been giving the frying pan. He hadn’t noticed her return and feels oddly disoriented that he also failed to notice the time she’d been gone.

“Nothing,” he says, but of course she thinks he's lying because he’s burned the eggs. He's not terrible at making scrambled eggs, not usually, but he has this bizarre pattern where he only burns food when there's something big weighing on his mind and she knows it.

Pepper shoos him out of the way, picks up the pan, dumps the contents into the trash and starts over. She stands in his space, barely an inch away as she cooks, hair sweeping down around her shoulders where before it had been pulled up into a bun. He pushes it aside gently and presses a light kiss to her neck, hoping she understands it's an apology and a “thank you” all in one.

She glances at him briefly, a smile on her lips, and doesn't ask about the eggs. He's grateful for it because as much as he wants to tell her the truth, he doesn’t have an answer that would satisfy either of them.

+

Loki slips into the dream unnoticed and takes stock of his surroundings. The location bears little resemblance to what he remembers of Stark’s ridiculous monument to his ego, so it must be somewhere else or made up altogether. He feels more than sees an ocean outside the wide glass windows and finds he likes the elegant, swooping curves of the architecture that are completely unlike the dull, box-like structures apparently favored by the rest of Midgard.

He discovers Stark sitting on a sofa with a woman that Loki doesn’t recognize, but who he gathers Stark has a great deal of affection for. They’re chatting and laughing, sitting close together and manipulating a network of colored lines that form complex diagrams. It’s not technology that Loki knows from Asgard, but it’s simple enough to grasp the purpose of it with some observation. It doesn’t interest him unduly and he ignores it as soon as he figures out what it’s for in favor of watching Stark himself.

They don’t speak of anything Loki finds interesting, so after a short while he moves to take her place. It’s tricky work to control elements of a dream that doesn’t belong to him, but soon enough he’s reclining in her place on the sofa, arms stretched over the back and long legs crossed elegantly.

Stark’s expression shifts just a little, eyebrows pulling together and mouth tipping down at the corners when Loki switches places with her. But this is a dream and anything could happen, so Stark's mind takes it in stride, skipping over the unexpected change with an ease that makes Loki smirk in triumph.

In dreams, the dreamer's defenses are lowered, making their thoughts easier to enter. But their minds are also more unstable, not always following rational, linear logic from one point to another. There will be limits to what Loki can say or do before the connection snaps and there may even be times when he's thrown out for no reason at all or because Stark wakes up. But it might be worth it for a little while, if only to fight his boredom. He's lucky it's Tony Stark, genius and visionary, and not one of the other nauseatingly simple mortals in this wretched realm. At least toying with Iron Man might prove to be a challenge.

“What was I saying?” Tony asks as though he can’t quite remember.

“You were going to show me around,” Loki directs, thinking he may as well see the rest of this house if he’s going to be spending time here inside his mind.

Loki has never been inside the mind of a genius before. Clever men, yes, and dim-witted ones too, but never someone who thinks quite like Tony Stark. It both is and is not what he expects, a whirlwind of thoughts, cacophonous and overwhelming, but in the middle of it is a bubble of focus so sharp it could cut.

He finds that Stark's dream self is capable of maintaining the thread of a conversation for whole hours at a time, far longer than anyone else Loki has ever had the misfortune of sharing a dream with. Most minds are fractured, their occupants jumping from topic to topic without remembering what came before or considering what comes next. The details of Stark's dream reveal things about him in detail so intimate he'd likely be embarrassed if he knew the truth. He doesn't remember what's in a corner of the living room, a bookshelf perhaps, or a chair, but the haphazard array of circuit boards, casing and wires on his desk is perfectly crisp. One painting on the wall is no more than a vague blur of color, but another is mostly remembered and infused with emotions Loki doesn’t get close enough to examine.

His mind is perfect and sharp like clockwork or a well-designed work of magic. Loki realizes that although the stream of words that often fall from Stark's mouth sound like the babbling of a man who can't for the life of him get his thoughts in order, the truth is quite the opposite. Stark is thinking about a thousand things at once, pieces slotting into place one after another and branching off in new directions at every turn. He must constantly makes choices about what does and does not warrant his attention, tossing aside things like sleep in favor of beautiful works of engineering.

Loki doesn’t fully understand the fragments of projects that float by, ideas both large and small spelled out in numbers and diagrams or sometimes just abstract concepts. But he likes the taste of them, the way that Stark wouldn’t be able to stop thinking about all of this if he tried. It feels like the way that Loki has always been steeped in magic all the way to his bones.

He shows Loki around the house and he’s bitingly sarcastic, arrogant and charming by turns, all witticisms and handsome smiles, but then there are the moments when he thinks no one is looking and lets his face fall, eyes flickering down and away and all of a sudden there's this look of such utter vulnerability. Loki thinks he'd hate to know how plainly it shows on his face. He doesn't hide nearly so well as he thinks he does, not from someone who knows a thing or two about hiding.

Tony Stark is oddly complex, layer after layer of contradictions, emotions and genius. Loki knows that the other people of Midgard hail him as special, almost a king if he’s willing to use the term loosely and if what Loki has seen so far is true, they're right to do so. He's by far the most interesting specimen Loki has yet found and Loki intends to take him apart down to the very last piece.

+

Several dreams later, Loki drops in and finds himself sitting in a dingy booth in an equally dingy restaurant. Across the room at the bar he sees the now familiar slump of Tony's shoulders and a few moments of watching allows Loki to determine that he's drinking something the color of amber that's probably whiskey. Tony hasn't noticed him and this seems like one of those slow dreams where nothing seems in a big hurry to happen, so Loki allows himself a moment to relax.

He orders a drink from the vague figure he identifies as a waitress and waits for it to arrive, idly curious if it will taste like anything once it does. Tony's dreams vary enormously from one to the next; sometimes they are richly textured, too bright and too strong and sometimes they are like this, all muted colors and vague impressions instead of solid images.

He lets himself relax because Tony is relaxed, pokes through a newspaper out of curiosity to find it filled with notes on biology and radiation that look a lot like Doctor Banner's work. Loki reads, stirring his drink and absorbing the information until between one blink and the next, the world shifts subtly, catching his attention. When he looks up, the vague impressions of other people in the room are gone and the restaurant is now utterly empty save for the two of them.

Tony lifts his head, realizes the man behind the bar has gone missing and turns around to find a bemused god looking back at him.

“Fancy meeting you here,” he says with a slow grin. Loki rolls his eyes but slides out of his seat, picks up his glass and weaves his way between tables and empty chairs to reach the empty seat next to Tony.

“Where have all the people gone?” Loki asks when he arrives, sliding onto the stool to Tony’s left and setting his drink down with a click. He’s no connoisseur of this type of alcohol the way Stark is, but it tastes strong and good, whatever it is, so he decides to keep drinking it. It’s unlikely it will have any effect on him, but then again, one never knows.

“That is an excellent question,” Tony replies, glancing around as if to check he didn't miss anyone the first time. Loki has learned the hard way that pointing out to Tony that he's in a dream does absolutely nothing useful and often destabilizes the dreams in ways that make Loki feel ill.

“Is there anyone outside?” Tony asks once he's determined that the interior of the restaurant is, in fact, devoid of life.

“You seem to think I would know,” Loki hums, toying with a cheap cardboard coaster that happens to be lying on the bar top. On one side is a diagram for a circular object with a star set in the center. It takes him a moment to place it, but when he does, he realizes it’s the schematic for Captain America’s shield. He flips the coaster over to see that the other side is printed with the image of a man who bears a striking resemblance to Stark, but a little older and with a slightly different set to his jaw.

“Don't you?” Tony asks, leaning against the bar, body turned to face him. He notices what it is that Loki is examining after a moment and immediately reaches to pluck the object from his fingers without asking. The coaster gets tucked into his jacket pocket where Loki won’t be able to examine it any further.

“No,” Loki says shortly, annoyed he didn’t get a better look at the object before he lost his chance.

There's a strange sense of foreboding creeping in around the edges of this dream and Loki hopes he isn't about to experience a dream turning into a nightmare. He has enough of his own to contend with and doesn’t need to add Stark’s to the mix.

Tony cracks a joke about zombie movies which are something that Loki vaguely understands the concept of, but otherwise fails to understand in terms of appeal or popularity. He's fought the undead before and they are much faster and far less entertaining than Midgardians seem to believe.

“And if there are zombies?” Loki prompts, curious if he can plant seeds that will shape the form of the dream.

“We'll want something to defend ourselves with. Otherwise, we'll be fucked,” Tony says after some consideration. He's still smiling, a good sign, and seems to be taking this more as a joke than something he need be concerned about.

“Where are we going to get those?” Loki asks with a slow grin, willing to play along just to see how this turns out.

“I wonder...” Tony trails off, glancing around one last time before using his stool to climb up and over the long wooden bar they're sitting at, glossy with too many coats of varnish and dark with age.

“Did you know it's easier to get a gun than a cellphone in the United States?” Tony says conversationally. Loki wonders if he starts a lot of discussions with strange facts like this.

“I found that getting a cell phone was quite easy,” he drawls, sipping at his drink and watching Stark over the edge of the glass.

“Did you steal it from some mind controlled puppet?” Tony jokes, reaching up under the bar and groping around blindly as he talks.

“Yes,” Loki replies flatly, eyes following him as he shifts around.

“Okay, it's harder to _legally_ get a cell phone like a normal person. You need a social security number,” Tony tells him, apparently unconcerned by Loki's answer. Then he makes a triumphant noise as his fingers close around the shape of a handgun. He pulls it out and at Loki's raised eyebrows adds, “Did you see the owner? I'd be surprised if he didn't have one.”

Loki hadn't seen the owner, but he's willing to trust Tony based on the appearance of the restaurant alone. He’s very well aware of the human love of firearms, no matter how much he dislikes them himself.

The gun makes a heavy metallic click when it's set on the wooden surface of the bar and pushed to the side so that Tony can continue his search. Eventually, he comes up with a box of ammo and a wooden baseball bat, but not much else.

“There's enough liquor down there to keep us drunk for a week straight,” he comments cheerfully. Loki gives him a look that's more bored than amused, but as ever, Tony doesn't seem to care.

He watches Tony push himself up and vault over the top of the bar, apparently feeling unnecessarily showy since it would only have been ten extra steps to go around. He stops short of getting all the way over and ends up sitting on the edge, legs dangling and eyes just a shade above level with Loki's. He wonders if that was the point.

“Have you ever used one of these?” Tony asks, holding up the gun. He's careful not to point it at either of them and Loki finds himself amused. It's not as if Tony could permanently harm him with it even if it were a real weapon and not part of the dream.

“No,” Loki says with disdain. He learned plenty during his brief stint hiding underground with Barton and has absolutely no desire to pick one up for himself if it's not absolutely necessary.

“Fine. I'll keep it. You get this,” Tony continues, holding out the bat handle first.

“I don't need it,” Loki sniffs. He's well equipped with magic and he's aware that none of this is real even if Tony is not. There's no real danger to either of them, zombie hoards or no.

“Just take it. You never know,” Tony implores and after a moment of hesitation, Loki takes it just to shut him up. Tony's concern for his well being continues to astound him considering that by rights, Tony should abhor every last bit of him. Fear might be too much to ask for, submission certainly would be, but Tony's mind doesn't even show signs of concern. It's almost like he thinks they're _friends_.

“Come on,” Tony says and heads for the door, not even looking over his shoulder to see if Loki follows. Loki does, but only because he’s already decided to see where this unusual dream leads.

+

Eventually, Loki grows tired of invading Stark’s dreams while he sleeps. The unpredictability is amusing, yes, particularly the time that Stark somehow got himself killed by a shambling horde of the undead. But he doesn’t remember Loki from dream to dream. He remembers who Loki is in the most basic sense: Thor’s brother and half-mad general of the army that invaded Midgard. But there’s rarely, if ever a spark of recognition that yes, Loki had been there last time, and the time before that.

But Loki also has an advantage in that when Stark wakes up, he will never believe that Loki is anything more than a figment of his imagination. If Loki visits him during his waking hours, Loki runs the chance that Stark will go running to Thor and Thor will tell someone else out of a misplaced sense of duty.

He does it anyway because of an ill-advised desire just to see what happens.

Stark makes the most undignified noise Loki has heard in years the first time he turns around in his workshop, jumping over blue mountains and valleys of the large scale projection JARVIS has made for him of the sea floor a mile off the coast of New York to finds Loki standing in the center of it all, unconcerned.

Loki disappears for a few minutes and reappears in a different location just to see what Stark will do. A bright glow, red metal-encased fingers and the rising whine of charging power are the first things Loki experiences the moment he returns. Apparently, Stark has used his time wisely and has prepared for his return. Fortunately for Loki, although perhaps unfortunately for Tony, his current form is entirely incorporeal and the repulsor shot that Stark fires at his face passes straight through and hits something with a crash and bang on the other side.

Tony looks enraged and Loki grins deviously.

A calm, urgent voice begins to speak overhead, posing urgent questions and repeating the words “no readings” several times over in different contexts.

“He’s right there!” Tony says, exasperated, gesturing at the place where Loki is still patiently standing.

“According to all possible sensors, there is no one there,” JARVIS counters. “Are you certain of what you’re seeing?”

“You’re supposed to believe me,” Tony complains, looking askance at the ceiling for a moment before returning his determined glare to Loki.

“I am also programmed to look after your well-being,” the voice sasses. Loki is almost entirely certain there is no living being behind the voice in Stark’s workshop, but he likes its spirit all the same.

“I am no hallucination. That I promise you, Tony Stark,” he says calmly and watches the way that Tony startles at the sound of his voice.

“If you were, I probably would have imagined you hotter. You look like you got left in the dryer for too long,” Tony says with an almost-laugh, making Loki frown slightly in incomprehension.

“The hair,” Tony says, gesturing at him. “You look like, I don’t know, a sheep? Still, might be better than the porcupine look from before—”

“A sheep?” Loki cuts him off, voice low and deadly. It’s true enough that his appearance isn’t fitting for either a prince or a god. But he doesn’t appreciate the sentiment and from a mortal no less.

“I know you know what those are. Thor mentioned them,” Tony continues, utterly ignoring the murder in Loki’s eyes. He really must have a death wish. Then, between one blink in the next, Loki’s whole appearance changes. His hair sweeps back, groomed and soft-looking and his wrinkled green tunic smoothes out and is covered by a soft, leather jacket of some sort, still with wider shoulders than Tony thinks is strictly necessary. It’s entirely unlike the magnificent armor of the Battle of New York, but still very much Loki.

“Nice trick,” is all he says, looking Loki over from head to toe shamelessly. Loki replies with a quirk of his lips that speaks of danger and private amusement at the plight of others.

Loki inclines his head infinitesimally in acknowledgement of the complement and Tony finds himself lowering his gauntleted arm to his side. He still feels jumpy and tense, ready to defend himself if he has to, but Loki doesn’t seem to be intent on destruction at the moment. Then again, Tony has been wrong about these things before. He only hopes he’ll be able to summon his armor quickly enough this time.

“So what’s the occasion?” Tony says, grinning and relaxing back into his best casual swagger. It’s the same one he’d adopted the last time he saw Loki standing in his tower, which might not be such a wise move. But he likes taunting people who think they’re better that he is, so sue him.

“I thought I would visit you while you were awake for once,” Loki says like he’s bored with the entire thing already. He watches with concealed glee as the implication sinks in, the dawning look of horror on Stark’s face as he realizes all the fragments of half remembered dreams might mean more than he thought they did at the time.

The repulsor is back in his face a heartbeat later, whining with the threat of power. Loki smirks, holding up his hands slowly in a mockery of surrender and watches the annoyed narrowing of Stark’s eyes as he registers the gesture for what it is.

“What do you want?” he demands, very conscious of the fact that the tower is empty of other Avengers at this particular moment. They all have their missions or people to visit or lunch to go pick up. Tony is going to have to handle this on his own if it escalates.

“You might as well ask what you mean. You wish to know what I’m planning,” Loki sighs, rolling his eyes.

“Okay, sure. What’s the plan here, Frank Morris? Thor told us you were shipped off to prison,” Tony says, still menacing Loki’s head with his weapon even though they both know the second attempt won’t go any better than the first did.

“I was,” Loki acknowledges simply.

“How’d you break out?” Tony asks.

“I didn’t,” Loki replies, quirking a smile at the confused look on Tony’s face.

“You’re going to have to explain a little better than that,” Tony informs him. It’s clear he’s interested, even if he’s hiding it.

“No, I do not,” Loki replies and chuckles at the frustrated huff of breath he earns in return. “Will you lower that thing? I dislike it hovering in my vision and you know it won’t help you.”

Surprisingly, Tony does as he’s asked without making a fuss. He doesn’t remove the armor from his arm and Loki can still see the tension stringing his body tight, but he’s listening.

“You never gave me the drink I asked for,” Loki says idly, remembering the amused smirk Stark had given him, a contrast to the angry, determined faces of his comrades.

He’d been in poor shape at the time, sporting more than a few broken bones and aching from the inside out in the worst way, all wounds courtesy of their green beast. But he’s had much worse and damned if he was going to flinch in front of his enemies.

That last comment had been meant as one final joke, but in retrospect, a drink with Stark would almost certainly have been preferable to the talk Thor had been determined to have before the pair of them left for Asgard with the Tesseract.

“Yeah, well, you threw me out of my own tower. I’d say you’re the one who owes me,” Stark volleys, keeping Loki in the corner of his eyes as he steps around to one of his screens and starts skimming through all of JARVIS’s readings on the interior of the shop. “Besides, if you don’t have a body, what business do you have with alcohol?”

“None. But I was under the impression it was an activity you’re rather fond of,” Loki says, following a few paces behind, just close enough to keep Stark on edge, but far enough to keep him from getting defensive. Tony notices his attention roving over all the displays currently running and the shapes of half finished projects and prays he doesn’t have anything out in the open that Loki could use against him some day.

“JARVIS, still nothing to report?” Tony says conversationally. JARVIS has kept his silence for several minutes now, running through all possible methods of determining whether or not there is someone else in the workshop, all to no avail.

“No, sir. You appear to be talking to thin air,” JARVIS informs him calmly and never hears Loki’s amused laugh at his response.

“It’s likely you will be the only one able to see me,” Loki says, watching Stark frown at the glowing lines and charts that tell him Loki doesn’t exist.

Loki seems real enough, he’s moving and talking like the one Tony met during The Battle of New York if perhaps a little less manically. But he’s not showing up on anything, not audio or video or radiation. There’s not the slightest disturbance in the space where he’s standing to hint at anything or anyone being there at all.

Tony trusts his own senses implicitly, but JARVIS’ words still ring in his ears. Is he certain of what he’s seeing? Not really. Loki is powerful and mischievous and most importantly: magic. He could probably do all kinds of things to Tony’s mind if he wanted to. But then again, Thor had said he was locked up in a heavily warded dungeon as punishment for his crimes. This shouldn’t be possible, not across thousands of miles of space or the boundaries between dimensions.

Tony still hasn’t quite figured out where Asgard lies relative to Earth. Thor will only talk of “realms” and of Yggdrasil, neither of which are of any use to Tony scientifically. He’s read everything he can get his hands on about Norse mythology, even peppered Thor with questions about which ridiculous stories were true and which weren’t—he was always surprised by the answers—but none of that gathered knowledge helps with the current situation in the slightest.

“So you’ve been dicking around in my head? Hanging out in my dreams?” he says after a moment of thought. Might as well see how much Loki is willing to tell him.

“You have a very unusual mind,” Loki replies, still watching him with that too-intense gaze.

“That’s what they tell me,” Tony quips, gesturing at a few magazines on a table that bear his photos and enthusiastic headlines on their covers. Loki perks up slightly with interest and moves over to them, flipping through the pages to find the articles on him. It’s a strangely indirect way of being examined, but it distracts Loki enough that Tony can get on with trying to work out what he is and why he’s here.

He could be a shapeshifter, Tony muses, or maybe it’s astral projection. He’s pretty sure he read something recently in SHIELD’s private files about some guy named Doctor Strange who was capable of magic like that. It stands to reason that Loki would be capable of it too. But the lack of data aggravates the scientist in him. Magic is only energy as far as he can tell and if he can see Loki, doesn’t that imply light waves at the very least? He wonders if perhaps his eyes aren’t actually seeing anything at all and it’s all in his head.

But then he realizes with a start that Loki is turning the pages to his magazines.

“How are you doing that?” he asks without thinking. Loki makes a curious noise in return, glancing up at him briefly.

“Turning the pages,” he clarifies.

 

“I do have some influence on your world,” Loki says cryptically.

“You’re a pain in the ass, you know that?” Tony grouches.

“That’s what they tell me,” Loki echoes his words with a smirk. The magazines are neatly stacked by the time he finishes browsing and Tony looks more annoyed than ever.

Loki ends up staying for just under an hour, examining his workshop for a while before wandering out to explore the rest of the tower with muted interest. Tony follows just to keep tabs on him. It’s not as if Loki is causing any trouble, but it’s his fault most of the tower had to be remodeled to begin with and Tony wouldn’t like a repeat performance. In the end he nods his head, says “goodbye” and disappears in the time it takes Tony to blink without causing any mayhem or trying to hurt anyone.

The encounter leaves him feeling slightly stunned and more than a little baffled. He’d been ready to send out a call to the other Avengers the entire time, but in the end it hadn’t been necessary. A cursory interest was all Loki had paid to most of his floor and then he’d just gone, simple as that.

He doesn’t even leave any horrifying gifts for Tony to find later.

+

“So what’s up with Loki these days?” Tony asks Thor, casual as anything as he hands him a beer. They’d gone through about a hundred brands and types before Thor had found one he approved of. It’s sweet and tastes vaguely of honey which Tony supposes he enjoys because it’s reminiscent of mead. Thor, as it turns out, likes drinking almost as much as Tony does, which isn’t unexpected, but does give them something in common when there isn’t much else. It just takes significantly larger volumes of alcohol to actually get Thor drunk than it does Tony.

Interestingly, it’s Steve that volunteers a reason for this. He admits he can’t get drunk at all no matter how hard he tries because his metabolism is just too fast and his healing factor too high. It could easily be the same for Thor.

Tony had cracked a joke about Howard and Steve had shot him a disapproving glare that Tony promptly ignored.

Steve and Thor eat more because of their metabolisms too, but that’s less noticeable because feeding six people means that the fridge is in an ever-changing state of flux anyway and Tony honestly never knows what he’s going to find once he gets there. Bruce jokes that it’s an adventure every time he goes for a snack. Tony just groans and installs a fridge in his workshop in which to keep anything he wants to keep all to himself.

“He is still imprisoned,” Thor replies, expression hardening slightly with a mix of emotions somewhere between anger and grief and oh, no, Tony really isn’t prepared to handle the sheer depth of Thor’s issues with his brother. He just wanted to know if there was any chance Loki got out without anyone noticing.

“You sure about that?” Tony says and when Thor gives him an odd, questioning look continues, “I just wanted to make sure. Thinking of taking of taking a vacation with Pepper and wouldn’t want him to show up while we’re away.” It’s a lie, but it assuages Thor’s suspicions just the way it was meant to.

“I have not been to see him myself, but I am certain we would know if he had escaped,” Thor says and the look on his face is so guilty Tony almost wants to shake him and tell him it’s not his fault his brother is a little shit. He keeps his hands to himself because shaking Thor seems like a poor decision no matter what way he looks at it. But he does say, “it’s not your fault” and Thor takes the no-touching decision right out of his hands and claps him so hard on the back he spills some of his own beer.

“My apologies—” Thor says, expression shifting immediately to apologetic as he looks down the spreading wet spot on Tony’s thigh.

“Don’t worry about it, big guy. You’ll get used to us fragile mortals eventually,” Tony replies easily, sucking the spilled beer off his fingers.

If Loki makes him spill another drink in surprise when he shows up late that night, well, they are brothers after all. It’s obvious that they have more in common than they think they do.

+

Tony works out after several visits and relentless questioning that Loki is still imprisoned, but that he’s figured out some way of visiting Earth. Why he visits Tony in particular or if Tony is the only person he visits are still questions left unanswered, much to his unending frustration.

Loki is evasive at best, and outright rude at worst, but he still hasn’t tried anything villainous. Tony is obsessively curious about the whole situation and although it’s probably a monumentally stupid decision, he doesn’t tell a soul about what’s going on because he wants to figure it out himself first.

One of the evenings Loki comes—as he often comes at night—Tony has just returned from a large annual party that Stark Industries holds for its investors. He’s still in his tuxedo save for the jacket which lies forgotten over the armrest of the soft.

Pepper had gone straight from the party to the airport to catch a flight to Japan, utterly ignoring any and all attempts Tony had made earlier to convince her to skip the party and rest instead.

It means he’s alone in the common area the Avengers all share, still buzzed from alcohol and attention and flipping through channels to see what’s on.

He chats with Natasha for a while when she walks in, elegant and glittering in a black dress with a asymmetrical neckline and silver jewelry that moves and flows over her skin like water. She’d shown up without warning at his party early in the evening with a snappily dressed Clint in tow. Tony is pretty sure it was a date, but he has no way of proving it.

She asks him about design updates for the electrical devices she wears on her wrists during missions and affectionately calls Widow’s Bites. He’s already finished them, but she says she’ll come by tomorrow to try them out because she has other plans for the evening. Tony smirks, eyes flicking back and forth between them suggestively until Clint mutters something unkind and vaguely embarrassed at him under his breath.

In the end, Natasha tugs Clint off by his tie like a cliche from the movies Steve probably watched as a kid. Tony watches them go and thinks about how talented an actress she is. Sure, she’d done an expert job of infiltrating both Stark Industries and his life, but Tony never guessed she had a special thing for Clint until long after she’d slammed him head-first into a railing and cured him of his blue-eyed brainwashing. It occurs to Tony that the mind-control is a topic he really needs to broach with Loki for a number of reasons. But that issue aside, it’s clear that Clint and Natasha have been skirting around the edges of _something_ between them for a long time.

He turns back to the TV and finds Loki sitting on the couch next to him, long limbs sprawled out carelessly like he owns the place. Tony notes that he has a terrible habit of sitting with his legs as far apart as possible, a habit that’s either a terrible or fantastic one to combine with tight leather pants.

Tony acknowledges his existence by trying to knock knees with him harder than necessary and makes a startled exclamation when the movement connects with solid flesh and leather. When he looks up from their knees to Loki’s face, he finds only a condescending smirk waiting for him.

“Something wrong?” Loki teases and shifts back to incorporeality when Tony makes a quick grab for his arm.

“How did you do that?” Tony asks and wants to groan at how often he’s asked this question of Loki and how rarely he’s gotten a satisfactory answer. This time is no exception.

“I have many talents,” Loki says.

The innuendo is on the tip of his tongue when Tony decides against it. So he swallows and asks, “How long have you been sitting there?” instead.

“Long enough to see my old pet come and go,” Loki replies, chilling Tony to his bones. He steadfastly tells himself that he doesn’t like Loki, only finds him objectively interesting. But the desire to flinch rises each time he remembers what Loki did to Clint and what he tried to do to Tony too.

“Leave him alone.”

“I have no desire to ever come near that man’s head again,” Loki huffs, annoyed.

“Mine more fun, is it?” Tony quips.

“Yes.”

Well, there you go, Tony thinks. Loki thinks he’s a fun toy.

“I thought you had that whole superiority complex about “mortals.” We’re just ants under your boot and so on,” Tony says, leaning back to study the man sitting next to him.

“You’re different,” is all Loki has to say on the matter. Mortals are below him, he’s always been taught that and always believed it. Their lives are like the flicker of a candle flame, so brief and extinguished almost as soon as they begin. Stark, however, is quick-witted and sharp-tongued, brilliant and harboring just enough darkness in his heart and mind to make him interesting. Loki doesn’t think he ever truly would have chosen the darker path, not like Loki did, but he’s strayed close a few times before and may yet a few more times to come.

“High praise, coming from the big, angry special snowflake over here,” Tony chuckles. Loki shoots him a brief, venomous glare, grasping the intent behind the words even if he doesn’t recognize the turn of phrase.

“No less annoying, however,” Loki snaps and makes himself solid long enough to bang his knee against Stark’s the way he’d done to Loki before. Only this time he uses more strength and enjoys the pained way that Stark winces.

“Okay, I get the point,” Tony complains, rubbing fingers at what’s sure to become a bruise.

Loki doesn’t reply, but he does look up at the TV with curiosity.

“It’s called a television. It shows movies and tv shows—”

“I know,” Loki says, cutting him off.

“Okay then,” Tony sighs and starts flipping channels again to find something amusing to show him. Tony settles on a few things that range from nature documentaries to awful reality television to R-rated films. After a few demands to change the channel, Loki just plucks the controller from his grip and takes matters into his own hands.

Tony leans back and watches as Loki fails to stay watching anything for more than ten minutes at a time.

“What do you miss most about being out of prison?” Tony says flippantly, more to fill the space between them with words than anything else. He expects Loki to make a joke out of it, to feign pining after murder and mayhem, but when he looks, Loki seems actually to be considering the question.

“The stars,” he says after a long pause. “I miss the seeing the stars.”

“Well let's go outside then,” Tony tells him, already up and halfway to the wide glass doors onto the balcony. Loki rises and trails a pace behind, expression half dubious and half resigned, and steps through the door when Tony holds it open for him. Doors may not be something Loki needs when he’s not solid to begin with, but it makes Tony feel a little less like he's insane and somehow, that seems to be the reason he does a lot of things these days—little things here and there just to remind himself that he's not stark raving mad.

“JARVIS, lights off,” Tony instructs, leaning his hip against the railing and turning to watch Loki. Without the house lights, Loki is lit only in starlight and the warm glow shining up from the city below, but it's enough to see the subtle shifting in his expression.

“A poor display,” Loki sneers, standing tall and proud on the balcony, face tipped towards the sky.

“Maybe not as good as The Middle of Nowhere, New Mexico, but probably not as bad as Hong Kong,” Tony replies, quirking a smile. New York isn't known for its clear night skies, but there are still a few bright ones that manage to shine through on clear nights like tonight.

“I doubt there is anywhere on Midgard that can compare to the view from Asgard,” Loki tells him evenly. He's a fantastic actor, Tony thinks, top notch, but it takes one to know one and he's lucky to catch the tail end of something in Loki's face that looks a little like a smile and a little like grief. He wishes, briefly, that he could just transport Loki somewhere miles and miles away just for a little while to a place where the stars fill the sky and aren’t just a few struggling specks of light.

Tony looks for too long, leaves the silence hanging between them until it's noticeable. He really should have said something by now, a joke maybe just to keep things rolling, to keep away from the tender spots they both have and hide.

“Tell me about it,” is all he can think to say. But maybe it's the right thing because for once Loki doesn't meet him with derision.

“There are more stars, millions of them as thick as sand and swirling in every color you can imagine,” Loki describes quietly. “They reflect off of everything; all the gold of Asgard shines with them at night.” His breath hitches, voice falling low and Tony imagines he can see the gears turning as Loki almost decides not to tell him what comes next. “On rare days, the sea that stretches from Asgard to the edge of the world is so flat that it becomes a mirror. You can't tell where the water ends and the stars begin. It feels like floating...”

“I figured you'd be sick of stars after all that time you spent falling,” Tony laughs, and there, that's it, that's the wrong thing to say. Loki's expression shutters closed, the cloak of anger returning with a will. It’s only a scrap of information that Tony picked up from one of the many stories Thor tells about Loki, but clearly he misjudged what exactly it meant.

Loki doesn't even grace Tony's misstep with a reply before he disappears. Tony doesn’t seem him for almost a month. But the next time they see each other, Tony doesn’t bring it up again and Loki pretends it never happened.

+

They talk of science and of magic, each knowing more of the other little by little. They are the children of different worlds and they know what it is to be angry and alone. Perhaps that's why Tony finds it in himself to keep going even though looking at Loki is like looking back on all the darkest corners of his own past. Loki is all sharp, jagged edges that cut them both as often as not; he's a criminal and murderer and cruel with his words. But he's also brilliant and shining with the energy of all the paths he never chose, of the person he could have been in another life and the person Tony dreams about when he crawls exhausted into bed with the sunrise.

The Loki he met at The Battle of New York would tear out Thor's proverbial heart given half a chance, would tear out Tony's real one too, just to see how he ticked, laughing in delight as Tony bled to death at his feet. But the Loki that may or may not be a figment of his imagination is something else entirely; Tony isn’t exactly sure how. Loki seems about as likely to rip out his heart as ever and what purpose it could possibly serve to sympathize with Loki escapes him and yet... and yet.

Half a week and a terabyte of video files stolen from everything from cheap pizza shop security cameras to top-secret military satellites later, Loki appears in his workshop to find him watching a particular video clip on loop. In it, Loki is thrusting a small, concealed dagger deep into his brother's stomach and maybe, if one were to look close enough or pause the frame, shedding tears at the same time.

Loki is understandably furious and promptly disappears for two weeks, four days and eight hours. Jarvis can't see him, but he knows when he comes back because Tony stops talking to himself and starts talking to thin air again.

“You do love him!” Tony tries first. Loki disappears again for three hours.

“I was curious,” he tries next and doesn't see Loki for an hour and a half.

The next time Loki appears, his nails are digging into his palms, but he's otherwise calm and composed. Tony opens his mouth, fresh words on his tongue, then Loki flicks his fingers and deprives him of the ability to speak. It’s bizarre, knowing how words and the muscles of his mouth and throat work, but somehow being unable to coordinate them in any significant way.

“I don't wish to speak of it,” Loki tells him, voice low. Tony nods and maybe Loki's stupid or maybe he's just complacent because he seems to take it as a promise and gives him back the ability to speak.

“Are you real?” is the first thing that falls out of his mouth and it isn't really what he meant to say, but he was half way through a thought when Loki flicked his fingers again and that part of it just happened to be the part that found its way out.

Loki looks genuinely surprised which is a step above angry as far as Tony is concerned, so he counts it as a win.

“What do you think I am?” Loki says cryptically. Tony is annoyed at his lack of cooperation, if not surprised.

“I think you're probably a deranged figment of my imagination. But hey, I've been wrong before. There was that time in Mexico when I swore I'd invented time travel and then I woke up the next morning and it was just a whole lot of nonsense, physics equations and the word tequila scribbled in all caps on a hotel napkin,” Tony tells him cheerfully, sitting the wrong direction in a rolling chair with his arms crossed over the top of the backrest.

Loki contemplates him for a long time, weighing the value of a lie against the value of the truth. It could be useful to allow Tony to continue thinking of him as a hallucination. But for some reason, the idea of Tony never knowing the truth doesn't sit well in his gut. Deception has never bothered him before and it’s an odd feeling now.

“What you see is only a projection of my real self, but I am not a figment of your pitiful mortal mind,” Loki enunciates slowly, eyes still raking over him more intently that Tony would really like.

“If you're just projecting into my workshop, why do you have so much control over my my mind? You can make me believe you're solid or that you've changed your shirt,” Tony says with a vague gesture. He's always talking with his hands, Loki notices, like he doesn't even notice and couldn't stop if he wanted to.

"You're the key. I project into this world through you,” Loki tells him, surprising them both a little with the honesty.

“How does that work?” Tony replies, genuinely curious about Loki's magic and jumping at even this small chance to learn more. Loki closes his mouth and frowns, already feeling like he's said too much. The action earns him an annoyed sound, but Tony wisely decides not to push the issue any harder.

“How do I know you're not just toying with me? Trying to drive me crazy on purpose?” he asks instead.

"That would ruin the fun. Fortunately, I find you amusing as you are,” Loki says, gracing him with the smallest of devious smiles. The first time, Tony would have been correct to accuse him of that. But his plans have changed since then.

“Prove it,” Tony challenges, which is something easier said than done.

“How?”

“Tell me something that only you and Thor would know. I'll ask him about it,” Tony says after several moments of thought. It's a sound plan, except that Loki can't afford the risk of Tony telling Thor about these visits. It's something which he has never expressly been forbidden from doing, but which he's certain will be taken from him if it is ever discovered.

“No,” he says shortly and that's it. No amount of cajoling or teasing on Tony's part will change his mind. He steadfastly ignores the attempts until Tony gives up and although it doesn't disappear, he finds it's easier than he thought to ignore the wish that Tony would believe in him once and for all.

+

Sometimes Loki stays with him late into the night, stretching out on his bed or the sofa in Tony’s workshop that’s too short for him and forces him to drape his legs over the armrest. They'll banter and tease, sometimes for hours, but eventually Loki's replies will peter out and Tony will just keep talking because its nice to have someone to listen to him. He adores JARVIS, has since the first time JARVIS said “good morning”, but this is different. Loki goes still and just listens, lets Tony talk and somehow it doesn't seem like he's ignoring him. Eventually, his eyes close, sometimes early on when he first relaxes and sometimes later, drooping closed no matter how hard he struggles to keep them open. But at some point, he'll just blink out of existence, there one moment and gone the next.

The first time it happened, Tony thought maybe he should be offended. Had Loki gotten bored with him and decided to leave without a word? It's not beyond the realm of possibility; Loki is polite only when it suits him. But Tony thought they were, well, not friends, but maybe not mortal enemies anymore.

It happens again and again and it frustrates Tony that he never catches the exact moment it happens. He's always looking away at just the wrong second. But after a dozen or so times, he comes to the realization that Loki isn't abandoning him on purpose; he's just falling asleep. Whatever magic it is that keeps him there on Tony's sofa or occupying space on the other side of the bed, it simply stops working when he stops being conscious to control it.

It's for this reason that Tony never actually sees him sleep and never has the pleasure of seeing him wake up, still lazy and rumpled from the night before. He thinks about it while he modifies the inside of a piece of armor that’s been pinching him when it assembles and then makes a face when it occurs to him how incredibly sappy he’s being.

+

Tony chatters away to Loki and for weeks no one notices. He's always had a habit of talking to himself when he works, or more often to Jarvis, DUM-E and U. But one day when Pepper is descending the stairs into his workshop, she hears Tony, excited and eager, say, "come here and look at this, Loki" and that's when she starts paying attention.

She wants to say something that first time, but she doesn’t. She drags him upstairs for dinner, a movie and sex and it’s a good evening. He acts normal, smiles at her every chance he gets and seems healthier than he’s been in years. She feels awful about going behind his back, but it's easier to ask JARVIS once she's out of Tony's earshot and when he informs her just how long Tony has been talking to an absent, criminal god, she has to take a moment to sit down and bury her face in her hands.

Pepper likes to think she knows Tony, that she can identify all his tells, but there is nothing she can remember that would have served as a warning for this. There have been moments over the last few weeks where she thought he might be thinking too hard about something, frowns that weren't strictly related to anything she knew about, but nothing that had popped up as a big, waving red flag.

There’s no proof of anything yet and she never catches him doing it again even if JARVIS does occasionally update her when she asks. All she can do is worry and hope that if it’s something important, Tony will tell her about it.

She starts subtly setting up openings here or there that would make it easy for him to broach the subject, but he doesn’t take them. Tony has a history of keeping things from her—the Palladium poisoning comes vividly to mind—but she’s made him promise multiple times over not to hide anything that important from her again. He never so much as hints at anything to do with Loki, and she can never quite bring herself to bring it up between all the dates and parties and that happy look he always gets when he sees her walk into a room.

She loves him more than anyone she’s ever dated. She handles the first time he gets in trouble, the second time he almost dies, the third time everything falls apart with a strength she never knew she had all those years ago when she first signed up to be Mr. Stark’s personal assistant. The cycle happens over and over again and she manages to hold on. But that kind of thing would take a toll on anyone and she’s not out there blowing things up and saving the world. She’s stuck in safe—and sometimes not-so-safe—places wringing her hands like the housewife she never wanted to be, watching the shaky news footage on the TV and hoping against hope that he’ll come home to her at the end of the day. That’s one thing he’s never failed to do for her, but even when he does, she’s still left to pick up all the broken pieces, fend off the media and run his company for him because he doesn’t have the time anymore.

Loving Tony has always been easy, but being with him gets more difficult with each passing month. She knows he’d rather die than hurt her, but it’s easy to forget that when she wants to scream at the news coverage of his newest act of heroism.

Mostly, she manages because he loves her back just as much, but maybe whoever said that all good things must come to an end was onto something. It’s not that he stops loving her, never that, but he does begin to change, becoming more erratic and unpredictable than ever. It shows in the little details like the steady increase of burned toast in the mornings.

He starts to miss more things, official business and personal dates both, and starts to come to bed late more often than he used to. Individually, nothing he does is remarkable because he’s always been like this. The combined results of everything, however, make it feel like he’s sliding slowly downhill again and she can’t figure out how to stop it.

It’s ridiculous, but one night that isn’t any different from any other night he’s missed one of their dates, she finally snaps and yells at him about it. He argues back that he’s been working and promises not to miss the next one. She tells him she isn’t even sure she believes him when he makes promises like that anymore and walks out without looking back to see the hurt expression on his face.

It’s stupid and petty and she knows it, but she packs a bag and flies to California without telling him just to clear her head. Three days later, she has a perfect tan and he still hasn’t called. Even that isn’t that unusual, but in a way, it still feels like the end of something.

On the fourth day, a Tuesday, he calls. It’s five in the morning for her which means it’s eight for him, but he still should have known better. She sighs, and picks it up as a video call. Her pajamas and sleep-disheveled hair are nothing he hasn’t seen before.

“Hey, Pep,” he says, appropriately abashed.

“Hi, Tony,” she sighs and gives him an exhausted look that has nothing to do with sleep and everything to do with him.

“I’m sorry,” he says quickly, with all the sincerity he can muster to prove he means it.

“I know you are. Do you know what time is is?” she asks quietly. He glances offscreen and then back at her and looks, if possible, even more guilty.

“I’ll call you back later.”

“No,” she says. “I’m already up and we need to talk.”

“We can talk when you come back,” Tony replies. He knows she prefers talking to him in person and it will give him just a little more time to come up with an appropriate apology.

“I’m not sure I should come back,” she says after a beat and hates the way his face falls.

There’s always been this vicious part of Tony’s brain that wondered when he’d finally do something stupid enough to lose her. But he always expected it would be something heroic and incredibly stupid, maybe there would be too much of his blood on her hands and she’d realize he was never worth it. But he never thought it would go like this, not with a bang but with a whimper.

“Pepper, I’m sorry, ” he pleads.

She can’t say “it’s not your fault” or “it’s not because of you,” because in every way possible it is about him. So instead she says, “this doesn’t make you a bad person,” and hopes he understands what she really means.

“I’m not going to stop being CEO,” she assures him when he fails to reply, “and I won’t stop helping you hide all the crazy things you do from the media.” His smile is weak and sad, but it’s there.

“You always deserved better than me,” Tony says. It’s not meant to be self-effacing; he isn’t looking for pity. It’s only the truth.

“Don’t be like that, Tony. You were great,” she sighs and tries to return his smile.

They sit and look at each other for a few moments, not quite sure how to proceed. It’s sentimental and ridiculous because it’s not like he’ll never see her again, but he finds himself trying to memorize every last detail of her face anyway.

“Are you okay?” she asks eventually, tone gentle and sad.

He almost lies and says “yes” like he has been all his life. But this is Pepper, his Pepper, so at the last minute he switches to honesty and says, “no, not really.”

“You will be,” she tells him.

“Are you kidding? This is me we’re talking about,” he says, trying to make a joke except that his heart isn’t quite in it.

“You’re a mess, but you’ll survive,” she laughs quietly.

“Maybe. Apparently I’m pretty good at that,” he replies.

“Like a cockroach,” she says and then they lapse into another moment of silence.

“Listen, I know it wouldn’t have made a difference, but I should have called sooner,” he tells her eventually, shifting slightly so she can see he’s sitting in their room in the tower. She hums her agreement and he makes exactly the guilty face she expects in reply.

“Some stuff came up,” he tries to say and stops the instant she frowns.

“Is this about Loki?” she says, thinking maybe it’s too direct, but knowing she hit the nail on the head when his entire body goes still and stiff.

“What?” he chokes out, staring.

“I walked in on you talking to yourself. JARVIS says you’ve been doing it for a while now,” she replies and only feels a little bad for the way he flinches.

“You should have told me.”

“I know,” he mumbles, closing his eyes and running a hand over his face and up into his hair.

“What’s going on?” she asks gently, affording him a small, encouraging smile.

“I’m scared I’m going crazy,” he says without thinking and then realizes that there, the words are out in the open now. He can’t take them back. Of course he's doubted himself before, been doubting himself all along, really, but saying the words out loud to someone else makes it feel so much more official. He can’t just conveniently turn a blind eye on the feeling any longer.

“I keep seeing him,” Tony explains before she can reply. “He says it’s something like astral projection, but there’s absolutely no evidence other than what I see and feel that he exists at all. JARVIS can’t find anything.”

“He says—Tony, how much have you been talking to him?” she asks, brows knitting in concern.

“A lot. Really a lot,” he mutters sheepishly. “He’s very interesting. But then again, if I am making this up—”

“—of course he would be,” Pepper finishes the sentence for him.

“I’ve been trying to cross-reference things he says by asking Thor some questions, but neither of them are making it easy on me,” Tony admits. He’s lucky Thor is like most people and likes talking about his family and where he grew up. But there are only so many detailed questions he can ask before Thor starts giving him suspicious looks.

Pepper looks at him for a long time before saying, “I’ll come back tomorrow, but I’m staying somewhere else.” She may have just broken up with him, but she could never in good conscience stay in California enjoying her vacation when something this big could be wrong with him.

He nods, swallowing back the emotion in his voice, and says, “Thank you, Pep.”

+

Tony lets the empty bottle drop the last inch or two from his loose fingers to the carpet and brings his hands up to cradle his head instead, elbows propped on his knees. He feels dizzy, as though there's a thin layer of gauze between him and the rest of the world. He's no stranger to being drunk and it's certainly not the first time he's drunk himself into a stupor down in his workshop. It won't even be the first time he wakes up alone, head pounding and furious with himself for all the bad choices he's ever made.

But he's gotten used to Pepper being there to make him breakfast and force him to drink water before bed so his hangover will be a little more bearable. Maybe that's the problem, he thinks, that he'd gotten too used to her being there. But no, that can't be it at all because he never stopped being surprised every time she smiled at him and never stopped feeling that little swell of warmth in his chest when she did something kind for him that he didn't deserve. He never took anything she did for granted.

It's all of him that's the problem – always has been. He’s too difficult to deal with and she deserves better. He doesn't doubt that she'll stay CEO, that she'll keep taking care of him from far away like she's been doing for almost as long as he’s known her. But maybe they got too wrapped up in each other, maybe she just couldn't handle caring about him like that and the wild, manic swings he had between wanting all of her time and disappearing for weeks because of some new project. He was always trying to keep them both safe and then challenging the world to a fight and forcing her to watch from far away as he bled and broke and fell.

“Anthony,” the voice comes softly from only a few feet away. He becomes aware of a pair of shoes in the edge of his vision and snaps his head up to look at Loki because of course Loki would show up now, at the worst possible time. There's a moment where he stares, expression open in grief and shock and then his face twists and he's snapping at Loki.

“'Why are you here?”

“The same reason I am always here. What happened?” Loki says, still so infuriatingly calm.

“Nothing!” Tony snarls, falling back on anger because he's never quite known how to let people get close right way, only in stops and starts and big leaps backwards. He hates his own weakness, his own fear and wants to hide as much as he sometimes just wants someone to _know_.

Loki watches him and waits, just stands there waiting until Tony can't handle it anymore.

“Leave!” he shouts. But Loki has never followed orders well, so instead he takes a step forward, turns in a perfect half circle and sits next to Tony on the sofa, eyes roving over the state of the workshop and the empty bottle between Tony's feet.

“Tell me what happened,” he says again like an order.

“Pepper,” is the only word Tony can get out before his voice chokes up, but he thinks Loki understands. He doesn't know if Loki has ever loved someone like that. Maybe he has, maybe he hasn't, but he must understand the basic concept. He must have seen or read or heard stories of love often enough to understand what it means.

Loki doesn't know what to say. He doesn't feel like lying and saying the words “I'm sorry” because he isn't. Tony's relationship with Pepper never mattered to him in the slightest, except he's been in Tony's head and he understands just what she meant to him. Even though he doesn't care about their relationship, he must grudgingly admit to himself that he might care, just a little, about Tony. He'll be of no use to Loki if he falls apart at the seams, no longer a good diversion from the prisons of Asgard if he lets something like this be the final straw.

“You should sleep,” he suggests, because the tightly wound lines of Tony's body bother him and in sleep Tony relaxes in a way he rarely does when awake. It may not help and Tony will likely wake up just as unhappy tomorrow. Loki has never been good at taking care of anyone but himself and he’s not capable of magicking the skill out of thin air now.

“She still won't be here in the morning,” Tony mutters under his breath.

“But perhaps you will have a clearer head, “ Loki sighs and then adds as an afterthought, “and thus be more amusing for me to talk to.”

“Because it's all about you,” Tony says cuttingly. Loki knows his pattern well and wishes it weren't because it's exactly the same thing he does sometimes, lashing out at people to cover up whatever it is he's holding close to his heart.

“You are being pathetic,” he tells Tony shortly, holding his gaze with an imperious frown.

“Do you pity me?” Tony laughs hollowly.

“No,” Loki says simply and it's the truth. Tony seems surprised by that, caught a little off guard. Loki surmises it's because people pity him often, though he can't for the life of him understand why. Tony is the strongest Midgardian Loki has yet met, and the maddest as well. He deserves many things, but pity is not one of them.

“Well I don't pity you either,” Tony sighs after a long pause, dropping his eyes back to the floor. For all intents and purposes, it's a non sequitur, but Loki is fairly certain he understands the intent.

“Thank you.”

Tony doesn't go to bed immediately. He doesn't try to tell Loki any stories or force him to watch any movies and Loki doesn't ask any questions. They just sit on the sofa listening to the slow rise and fall of the annoyingly loud, shouting music that Tony must have put on before he arrived. Loki's expending energy to be here and do absolutely nothing at all, but oddly, he finds he doesn't particularly mind the waste.

Eventually, Tony gets up and manages to make his way upstairs, Loki following a step behind just to make sure he arrives at his destination. He almost trips on the stairs, rights himself and carries on, too drunk to be embarrassed about it. It’s a toss up whether he’ll even remember all of this in the morning or not.

“You should drink something,” Loki tells him from his bed where he's stretched out on top of the covers, all lean lines folded neatly in on themselves.

“I already did. That’s why I’m drunk,” Tony says as he tugs his shirt off over his head. He never gave Loki permission to make himself at home on top of Tony's duvet, but he can’t be bothered to tell him off for it either.

“Water,” Loki sighs. Mortals have a far lower tolerance for alcohol than the people of Asgard, but the consequences of having too much appear to be more or less the same. Loki has been brothers with Thor all his life and knows a thing or two about handling people who like to make poor decisions.

Tony fills a glass straight from the tap and chugs it down in one go. It probably won't be nearly enough to nullify the effects of the inevitable hangover, but it's enough to mollify Loki for the time being.

Loki doesn't seem inclined to move from where he's lazily inspecting the ceiling, so Tony doesn't make him. He walks around to the other side of the bed and climbs in with a groan, curling his body away from Loki towards the wall. He's still thinking about Pepper, can't really stop himself, but he spares a thought to wonder why Loki is still here. He's hardly good company at the moment.

“Are you lonely?” he mumbles, mouth half muffled by the pillow and eyes already slipping shut. Loki never replies and in the morning he's gone again without so much as a dent in the duvet.

+

There’s barely any movement inside the cell when Thor arrives, but he knows that Loki sees him. Loki is sitting cross legged on his simple bed, hands relaxed in his lap over the cover of a closed book, but it’s his eyes that follow Thor’s movements as he steps closer.

“Why are you here?” Loki asks, voice rough with disuse.

“To see you,” is the only answer that Thor can give him. Loki looks somehow diminished from what Thor remembers, not dirty, never that, but plainer and slimmer. His hair is pushed back from his face, but curls down around his shoulders without direction and he wears no armor or finery. Only the quality of the fabrics used in his clothing speak of his status, but the planes of it are simpler, shoulders narrower and angles less vicious.. His bearing remains, a proud kind of elegance in the lift of his chin and the curve of his spine, and even that shifts into a lazy sprawl that’s a perfect copy of arrogance when he sees Thor.

It strikes Thor that there’s no one for him to impress these days. All the pomp and glittering circumstance of Asgard, all the layers upon layers of heavy cloth and finely wrought metal mean nothing down here.

“Here I am. You may leave now,” Loki says, dismissing him like he has that right.

“I haven’t forgotten about you, brother,” he says quietly. “You have been in my thoughts often as of late.”

Loki snorts derisively because no, it’s not Thor’s thoughts that he’s been in lately, it’s Tony’s and they’re far more interesting.

“Does Odin know you’re here?” Loki sneers and Thor can tell he’s trying to use that tongue of his to hurt because there’s nothing else he can do to drive Thor away.

“I don’t know. It was never forbidden to come here,” Thor replies calmly, lowering himself to the ground on the other side of the glass, clearly intent on staying to torment Loki for a while longer with his presence. He turns away to lean his back against the wall and it allows Loki to study the line of his broad shoulders for as long as likes without being noticed.

“Ah, so my lack of guests is just because I’m not well liked. I did wonder,” Loki snickers, unfolding his legs to stand and move closer. He crosses the cell in less than a dozen strides and he’s taken these steps so many times before that he would have known exactly when to stop even if his eyes had been shut tight.

“You did many things to make them feel that way,” Thor sighs, voice weary as he repeats things they both know too well.

“I am aware. It’s a message you seem to be unable to get through that thick skull of yours,” Loki says, standing inches away from the glass to look down at the back of Thor’s head. He crosses his hands behind his back and stands tall. It doesn’t mean anything that he’s above Thor in this moment, but it’s better than having Thor above him and better than having to meet Thor’s eyes at the same level as his own.

“What message?”

“That I’m not worth the effort to like and I stopped being useful some time ago,” Loki snaps angrily, thinking he shouldn’t have to say something so obvious.

Thor doesn’t reply, but the very fact he’s here with no apparent purpose except to see Loki is enough to prove he disagrees.

“You took long enough to visit,” Loki sighs finally, relaxing with a tired sound. All this posturing won’t do him any good if Thor isn’t even going to look at him. So he bends his knees and brings himself level with Thor again, turning to sit with his back to the glass, a perfect mirror to Thor on the other side. Perhaps it’s time they stopped looking at each other and started listening instead.

“I have been in Midgard some of this time and busy for the all the rest. The realms grow restless and father needs me,” Thor replies. Loki feels the beginning of anger and disappointment welling up in his chest, the old hurts about how he could do anything Thor could. But in the end, he finds he simply doesn’t have the energy to expend on the effort. It doesn’t seem worth it anymore.

“Then surely you have better things to be doing than pestering me,” Loki mutters rebelliously.

“I will come more often in future,” Thor promises, so earnestly that it makes Loki want to hit him.

There’s too much wrapped up in the space between them these days. Almost everything Thor does makes him want to scream or shout or kill things and that’s always been Thor’s job, not his.

“Do you remember when you used to drag me hunting?” Loki asks quietly because he doesn’t want to fight with Thor over how pointless his promise is.

“How could I forget?” Thor asks and Loki can tell even without looking at him that he’s smiling.

“It was always awful,” Loki huffs and knows Thor doesn’t believe a word of it because he’s stubborn and so horribly annoying that way.

“Not always.”

“Do you remember the time it rained for three weeks?” Loki asks and Thor laughs cheerfully behind him like it hadn’t been the most miserable three days of their lives up until that point. It had been awful, yes, and Loki remembers every sodden moment of it, but there are other memories mixed up in there too, memories of warmth and laughter and one of the few times Loki can remember when all of Thor’s friends had taken his side to tease Thor for once.

“I have many fond memories of those trips. Perhaps you’ve just forgotten,” Thor says, voice almost teasing like he doesn’t know if he’ll be allowed this or if Loki will hiss and snap and withdraw into himself again.

“I haven’t forgotten any of it. I remember I was _better_ at it than you and no one ever cared,” Loki replies, feeling the anger rising again, so easily, but then Thor speaks and he’s thrown off balance.

“Yes, you were,” Thor replies and Loki, who knows everything about his brother and deception both, can tell he feels no shame in admitting the fact. The Thor that Loki remembers would never have admitted it, but the Thor that sits back to back with him now isn’t the Thor that Loki remembers. He’s different from the man that Loki prevented from taking the throne what seems an age ago. He’s not very much older, not by their standards, but it’s almost as though he gained all the wisdom of a century in that short amount of time.

The thought comes unbidden that this Thor might make a good king, if not now then soon, and Loki is struck silent with the revelation.

“I’m—” Loki says and finds he can’t finish, can’t say the word “sorry” into the open air. There’s too much tangled between them still and Loki thinks that maybe, just maybe, they could unwind it all piece by piece if they had the time. But they don’t, Loki saw to that, and Thor might still love him, but love and forgiveness are not the same thing.

“I am as well,” Thor murmurs so softly that Loki barely hears it through the glass.

+

Tony walks in on Bruce without knocking and stretches out on the chaise in the corner without asking. He hears Bruce sigh deeply and looks over to watch him remove his glasses and rub his tired eyes. He looks exhausted, like he hasn't slept in a few days, which is entirely possible. Tony knows his latest experiments haven't been going well.

“You should find a real therapist,” Bruce advises after several minutes of uncharacteristic silence. He recognizes this pattern where Tony shows up, but doesn’t immediately try to poke him with anything sharp or draw his attention to some new project. It means he has something important to say, but doesn't know how.

“I just want a sounding board,” Tony replies flippantly, hands resting over his stomach.

“One that talks back and gives advice,” Bruce sighs, standing up and shuffling over to fold himself in the armchair next to Tony’s seat.

“Yes.”

“That's called a therapist, which is exactly what I'm not,” he counters, voice calm but eyebrows raised. Tony's not likely to listen, but Bruce still refuses to give in without even the pretense of a fight.

“Can you run a scan on my brain?” Tony asks right out of the blue, surprising Bruce who'd expected more tales of woe.

“Why?” he asks first and thinks that he doesn't actually own an MRI machine. It's worrying that he's already considering whether or not they could break into a hospital. Tony, it seems, has been anything but a good influence on him.

“I just want to know if there's something wrong,” Tony shrugs with a tight frown.

“What are your symptoms?” Bruce asks with a rising feeling of concern.

“I might be seeing things,” Tony says evasively, looking at the bland, uninteresting ceiling instead of at him.

“Might be?”

“I can't tell if they're real,” Tony admits, voice strained like it pains him to tell someone this. It might be better if he just pretends like he was joking and backs out now.

“What things?” Bruce pushes and Tony wonders what he expected coming here. Of course he's going to have to tell Bruce everything now because otherwise Bruce will continue to worry and harry him at every turn. One doesn't just admit to hallucinations and then assume their friends will let it go when they want to back out.

“Everybody's least favorite Norse god. You know the one: tall, pointy horns, you broke most of the bones in his body.”

“I'm going to need a little more than that,” Bruce manages to say evenly, even as he tries to decide which would be a worse scenario: that Tony is actually hallucinating or that Tony is being visited by Loki and has, therefore, gotten himself into some deep trouble.

“Loki. I can't believe you couldn't figure that out. I thought it was pretty obvious—”

“Tony,” Bruce chides. He knows Tony understood what he meant.

“He likes to come and hang out with me when I'm alone, usually in the workshop,” Tony sighs, covering his face with his hand.

“Do you talk?”

“Yes.”

“A lot?”

“Yes.”

“How often?”

“Maybe once a week. Sometimes more, sometimes less,” Tony tells him, voice deceptively calm in a way it rarely is except when he's struggling to cover something up.

“How long has this been going on?” Bruce asks carefully.

“A few months.”

“ _Tony_ —”

“I know!” Tony exclaims, sitting up in a rush. “I know. But you don't understand—”

“I'm starting to-” Bruce cuts in.

“No. I swear, I think he's real most of the time. Tell me you don't think he's capable of astral projection, Bruce. We saw all those duplicates he made of himself back in Germany. Tell me you don't think it's possible,” Tony says, almost desperate. He's heard stories about mutants, looked up data about all the new superheroes showing up in the world who can do things like this. Sure, Loki is on another planet, maybe in another dimension, but it's not _impossible._

He wants it to be real, Bruce realizes. He'd rather know that Thor's psychotic, mass-murdering, maybe-brother is haunting him than think he might be going off the deep end.

“I think it's possible,” Bruce admits slowly. “But we should get you checked out anyway.”

Tony takes a breath and smiles, but Bruce can see he's anything but relaxed.

“When are we going to sneak into the hospital?” he says and Bruce can't do anything but laugh and smile at him like he always does when Tony suggests something ridiculous.

“You can just go during daylight hours like a normal person,” Bruce replies, aware he's already lost.

“Yes, but then this would be on the record. What if it got into the news?” Tony tells him, pushing the conversation back to lighter territory. In truth, Tony could buy a whole MRI machine, but there’s something about the pointless childishness of sneaking around at night with Bruce that amuses him.

“I doubt it would. You’ve probably heard of his miraculous thing called doctor-patient confidentiality,” Bruce replies.

Bruce knows it’s hard for Tony to talk honestly about himself sometimes. He’ll make jokes about his talents and his many and various failings as easily as he will about the newest movies, but there are other things he buries deep down and ignores until he’s forced to dig them up again.

So Bruce puts a hand on his shoulder, makes eye contact and then stands up to get back to work. He lets Tony putter around his lab and assist with a few experiments for the next couple of hours, even though he's more of a hindrance than a help, always distracting Bruce and trying to feed him snacks he produces from god knows where. The fact that Tony came to him for help speaks volumes about their friendship and if this is all Bruce can do in return, it'll just have to be enough.

They almost end up sneaking into the hospital after all, but Steve accidentally catches them on the way out the door. Tony’s lie works to obscure the reason they were leaving, but somehow manages to get them tangled up in a movie marathon instead. Tony falls asleep because he’s seen them all already and by the time Steve leaves to go to bed, the whole mission seems a bit pointless.

The next morning, Pepper calls to say she scheduled an appointment at a very prestigious and very private clinic downtown. Tony is clearly surprised, but her initiative solves their breaking and entering problem and frees Bruce of the dubious honor of doing something extremely illegal for Tony.

Tony goes without a fuss and comes back with a record that states there is absolutely nothing wrong with him physically that he didn’t already know about. The doctor had, however, given him a very firm talking to about his answers to the questions on the paperwork that asked after his sleep schedule and alcohol intake.

Bruce snorts quietly at him when he mentions this detail.

+

Several nights later, Tony is woken by a strange, shuffling noise and an unexplainable bad feeling that he chooses to trust instead of ignore. He sits up, squinting through the darkness at the foot of his bed and swears he sees movement.

“JARVIS, lights,” he commands.

Nothing.

“JARVIS?” he repeats, leaning over to access the environmental control panel next to the bed. The fact that JARVIS isn’t replying to him bodes very ill. He raises the lights, turns his head and jerks in surprise when his eyes meet those of a tall figure standing off to the side of his bed. The sight sends a surge of adrenaline rushing through his system that has him half way out of bed in an instant. From there on out, things happen so fast that they probably take no more than a few seconds in total, despite the way he remembers every detail like it had happened in slow motion.

There’s a flash of gold light in the corner of his vision and someone hisses, a sharp, angry intake of breath. A heartbeat later and there's the sound of metal sliding into flesh, freeing a river of crimson, and then a body hitting the floor hard with another on top of it. Loki's head snaps up, eyes connecting with his and then Tony watches in shock as Loki shoves just a little harder, shoulders tensing and there's the sickening crunch of bone as his blade slides straight through the stranger’s spinal column and into the rug beyond.

It's easy to forget sometimes that Loki isn't anything even close to human. Most of the time, he looks like he could be—tall and a little on the thin side—but right now he looks utterly alien. He's lean and sleek like an animal, but the look in his eye is too calculating, full of vicious cunning that positively screams danger. Lately, Tony has only seen him when he was mostly still, thinking and moving with calculated calm. But seeing him like this, not desperate but utterly in control, is a brutal reminder of everything Tony almost let himself push to the back of his mind.

Tony knows he's pressed up against the headboard, eyes wide and breath coming in sharp stops and starts. He's halfway to calling his suit, but knows it won't do any good if his is the next blood Loki intends to spill. Loki would have him dead before the armor so much as moved.

“You should be more careful.” Loki's voice is startling in the still darkness.

Tony opens his mouth and then closes it again because he simply can't find any words. Loki looks him over critically one last time, as if, hilariously, to check he's okay. Then Loki's gone, disappeared without a trace except for the dead man bleeding all over Tony's new carpet.

“JARVIS, call Pepper,” Tony manages after several moments spent staring at the shape of a human corpse on his rug. There’s no reply and then he remembers that oh, right, something must have happened to his AI to stop him warning Tony that this was coming.

He reaches for his phone and calls Pepper himself, skates right past her complaints about the time and explains as much as he can in short bursts of words. There's silence and then the rustle of her moving around and the deadly calm sound of her voice that means she's shifted gears and is expecting the worst.

Next, he stumbles to his feet, skirts the dark pool of blood on the floor and makes his way downstairs to the secure room that contains JARVIS' core. One hard reset later and Tony smiles for the first time since he woke up at the way that JARVIS' polite tones ring through the room to report that he is unharmed. It's stupid to get sentimental about an AI, but Tony honestly couldn't care less.

Pepper arrives so fast it’s possible she had to bribe someone to get here or at least that she broke several traffic laws. He tries to stop her going into his room because Pepper isn't squeamish exactly, but she still doesn't like the sight of blood and Loki hadn't been mindful of the amount of gore he caused. But she marches right in despite everything, stops, stares and groans.

“What have you done now?” are the first words out of her mouth.

“What have I done? I haven't done anything. I was asleep and then out of nowhere—” she cuts him short with a tired look and he's reminded that it's close to four in the morning.

“Ask JARVIS about it. He's still programmed not to lie to you. I'm going to make coffee,” he says, turning away. She looks a little surprised, but whether that's because Tony never changed JARVIS' settings after she moved out, that he's clearly making her coffee, or the lingering effects of the crime scene in his bedroom, he may never know.

She follows him towards the kitchen, exchanging polite, professional words with JARVIS on the way.

“I was offline for the duration of the event. But the basic security systems were still active,” JARVIS informs her helpfully. “According to the footage, Mr. Stark had no hand in the death of his unexpected guest. All possible sensor readings report that everything shown in the recording was as it seemed with the single exception of the presence of Loki.” Pepper knows JARVIS isn't picking sides here, but it's still jarring to hear him talk about Loki like his existence is the truth. Except, she thinks as the lights in the kitchen rise gently into full brightness, what else could possibly have happened?

She trusts JARVIS, but reviews the footage anyway just for peace of mind. Once she's finished, she has to take a moment and wonder how a man could be alive one moment, gushing blood from a wound like that the next, and dead in the one after, all without apparent cause. Theirs is a world of strange and marvelous things, more so every day, and despite everything Tony ever told her about Loki, she’d still never believed him. Aliens, gods, mutants, magic all appearing in the world and she still didn't believe him. But he didn’t really believe himself, either, so maybe they’re both at fault for that one.

Tony is watching her, moving around the kitchen and fiddling without any apparent aim. She suspects his maintained silence is for her benefit, not because he has nothing to say.

“Why did he save you?” she asks calmly and can tell by his body language that he's surprised she's taking all this in stride.

“I've been asking myself that same question. It's not like doing it benefits him in any way, at least, not any way worth killing over,” he says, clearly annoyed that there's a puzzle he has almost no hope of solving.

“Loki doesn't value life the same way we do. What could he stand to gain?” she pushes.

“I don't know. Companionship? He's told me a few times I'm a whole lot more interesting than wherever he's being kept prisoner. But that's like murdering for a toy you only kind of like. Who does that?”

“Violent trickster gods, maybe,” Pepper sighs, already going through mental checklists and plans to figure out how to deal with this situation. They'll have to make this all as official as possible, no loopholes. There are too many people who'd love nothing more than to get Tony into trouble because he handled this situation poorly.

“Have you called the police?” she asks suddenly.

“No?” Tony replies. Honestly, he hadn't even thought of it. Being a superhero has changed his perspective on a lot of things, law enforcement included. Generally, he takes care of his own problems.

“I took the liberty of doing so, Ms. Potts. I estimate seven minutes until their arrival,” JARVIS pipes up helpfully.

“Gee, thanks for the early warning,” Tony sasses at him, rolling his eyes.

“I didn't wish to interrupt,” is all JARVIS has to say on the matter and it's such a blatant lie. JARVIS is the master of interrupting important things with relevant information when he feels like it. Probably, he just didn't want to give Tony enough time to do anything to stop him.

“Tony, what are we going to tell the press? There's proof you weren't the one who shoved a kitchen knife through a man's throat twenty minutes ago, but as far as the security footage goes, _no one did,_ ” she says, jotting down notes to herself on her tablet even as she speaks.

“A kitchen knife?” Tony asks, catching on the unexpected detail. He glances at the knife block when Pepper does and finds one missing. So much for noticing all the clues.

“Yes. Focus, Tony. Story,” she says curtly, eager to come up with something in the seven minutes before the police arrive.

“Bodyguard in a stealth suit?” is what Tony comes up with after a moment or two of thought.

“But there's not even a blip. With normal retro reflective panels, you can still tell there’s something there if you're looking for it,” she argues.

“Normal panels, sure. But this is me we're talking about. What good would a stealth suit be if I couldn't even trick my own security system?” he says with a grin.

“It's a weak excuse at best,” Pepper says dubiously.

They discuss the matter for the entirety of their allotted window of time and in the end, Pepper can only roll her eyes at the animated way Tony is describing his newest stealth suit to the highest ranking of the officers, a tall woman with cropped black hair, who arrives in response to JARVIS’ call.

The rest of the team shows up too, but not all together. JARVIS had decided that this wasn’t an emergency that warranted an alert, so it’s only the sound of city officials stomping around and a dozen or so voices that wake them in the end.

Tony’s certain that the shirt Natasha is wearing belongs to Clint, but doesn’t get the opportunity to make any inane comments about this fact. People come and go and Tony sits in the middle of it all itching for something to do but obligated by guilt to keep Pepper company while she handles his problems.

“Are you okay?” she asks him in the middle of a quiet lull in the activity. Surprised, he looks over at her.

“Of course I am. Why wouldn’t I be?” he replies.

“Tony,” she sighs.

“I miss movie night,” he says, “and that face you make when I buy you stupid presents and play annoying music at you-"

"I swear to god, Tony, if I ever hear another Red Hot Chili Peppers song I am going to kill you," she threatens, exasperated in that almost affectionate way she always manages.

He laughs, and that's the moment when he realizes they'll be okay after all. Maybe they weren't quite right for each other, but she's not going to disappear from his life either. She’s been through hell because of him and if she could handle all that, she’s not about to just disappear like a ghost now.

+

Tony only knows she's there because of the unobtrusive alert that pops up in the bottom corner of one of his monitors. It's tempting to spin around and grin, pretend like she hadn't managed to sneak up on him this time unlike the last dozen times. He's not even sure if she secretly wants to give him a heart attack or if it's just her natural state at this point.

“A bodyguard in a stealth suit?” Natasha says lightly, picking up a new prototype Stark pad and looking it over curiously. It’s slimmer, lighter, faster, the usual gamut of upgrades for a mass-market Stark device, but otherwise mostly unremarkable.

“Yep. Don't you watch the news?” he replies easily, not even looking up from the delicate wires he's soldering into place.

“I call bullshit,” she tells him. This is something he likes about Natasha: she doesn't beat around the bush. When she was undercover, sure, she had to act like the obedient, ruthlessly efficient, sexy personal assistant. But now that they're teammates, she'll come right out with it and maybe cuff him over the head if she feels like it. She's also not above manipulating him, not by a long shot, but today she seems willing to be civil about this conversation.

“Always thought you were clever,” he says, setting down his tools carefully and spinning to face her without getting up.

“I've seen the security footage. Someone killed that assassin, but it wasn't you and it sure as hell wasn't a bodyguard in a suit. You'd never let anyone that close to your tech that wasn't one of your close friends.”

“Am I not allowed to be friends with my bodyguard?” he says and raises his eyebrows at her, still smiling his best cocky smile.

“I know who all your friends are,” she tells him with a raised eyebrow. “Unless you’re going to tell me that was Happy in a stealth suit.”

“To you, I am an open book,” he says with a grin and just a hint of theatrics for effect.

“Stark, who killed that man? You know, don't you?” she presses, all business. But there's a hint of a smile on her lips he knows is amusement. He sighs deeply, considering how likely it is he'll get away with a lie in the face of such a direct question. The answer is: not very likely. So he decides “fuck it” and takes a leap of faith.

“Loki.”

Dead silence.

“You lying bastard,” she says suddenly. It's a test and he knows it, so he looks her right in the eye the next time he speaks.

“Loki killed him.”

He thinks it might be the first time he's utterly blindsided Natasha with a piece of information.

She strides towards his bar and pours herself a glass of his most expensive liquor while he watches. He knows better than to complain about it.

“You have a lot of explaining to do,” she says after downing half of it in one go.

“Isn't that bad for your reflexes or something?” he comments idly, leaning on his elbows on the worktop.

“I get the feeling I'm going to need it for this story,” she quips, making him grin.

“You have no idea.”

He doesn't expect Natasha to be the one who understands, at least a little, and who judges him the least. But then, he thinks, she's never had the same morality as the rest of them. She was a spy before she was a superhero and something else he's never looked too hard at before that. She asks him a lot of firm questions, things that sound harsh but mean she wants to make sure he isn't in over his head. It's a strange kind of comfort, different from Bruce or Pepper, but he's grateful for it all the same.

In the end, Loki isn't causing any trouble. If anything, he just saved Tony's bacon and strange though that thought is, it means there's no reason for her or any of the team to do anything about it except be ready for whatever may come.

Tony can tell she's thinking of stories of trickster gods and the sly, manipulative dealings she's had with Loki in the past, but she keeps quiet about it. It's not that she thinks Tony is always wrong or even that he's stupid, is just that she has a better idea than most just how idiotic his decisions can be when he sets his mind to it. Then again, she also knows that sometimes his crazy ideas turn out better than anyone could have hoped.

“Don't let him play you,” she says as a parting gift. He gives her what might be the world's sloppiest salute in reply. Steve would be ashamed of him, but Natasha just rolls her eyes.

“Make sure you call us if everything starts going to shit.”

+

Loki comes to him the next time on a cold day near the end of October. Tony is bundled up in a black wool coat and a scarf the same color as his Iron Man suit and thinking wistfully of Malibu. He's going to get coffee just to prove Steve wrong; he does sometimes leave the tower of his own volition when things like violence or business meetings aren’t looming over his head and he’s walking all the way there just to drive the point home. He regrets the decision, but proving Steve wrong was too vindicating a possibility to ignore at the time and he wouldn't be Tony Stark if he gave up now.

Loki appears without warning at his side, falling flawlessly into step with him as if they’d been walking together for the last half mile. He’s wearing something appropriate for the day: a long, slim coat that’s such a dark color of green that it looks black until the light catches it, and a fine silk scarf in white and gold that’s a different pattern from the one in Stuttgart.

“For an alien you have a really good fashion sense,” Tony comments without missing a beat.

“I always feel oddly as though I should be offended when you call me that,” Loki replies dryly.

“Why? Because most people think of little green men?” Tony asks and then, when he sees the muscle in Loki’s jaw tighten in annoyance, adds “or big blue ones?”

The look Loki shoots him is pure venom like he’s an inch away from tearing out Tony’s insides in the most violent way imaginable. Score one for using information gained from Thor’s drunken rambling about his brother to piss off said brother in the most efficient way possible.

“Alright, alright, sorry. Don’t disappear on me. But I’m telling you that someone who looks mostly human except for a little blue skin isn’t going to send anyone screaming around here. We’re all too jaded for that. Add some spines and too many eyes and body parts that look like they’ve been through a bad accident with a tractor and you might get somewhere with the whole ‘monster’ thing.”

Loki listens to his chatter with tight lips, eyes trained resolutely on the ground a few steps ahead of their feet. He lets Tony finish and doesn’t have anything to add, so he waits him out.

“So how are things in ancient alien Alcatraz?”

“A cell down the hall has some new residents. They are very noisy and I want very much to rip their throats out,” Loki sighs dramatically. Tony doesn’t take him seriously when he says things like this, which is annoying as often as it is for the best.

“Sounds like a party,” Tony says, amused. “So are we going to talk about what happened two weeks ago?”

“What is there to talk about?” Loki replies flatly.

“I should probably say ‘thank you’ but mostly I’m just curious what the fuck that was all about,” Tony says, sidestepping a taxi that had pulled too far into the crosswalk as he crosses the street.

“It was probably because of your association with me,” Loki replies with a frown. “I have made a very powerful enemy and it’s likely he sent the assassin after you to draw me out.”

“Great. So it didn't even matter if I lived or died, just so long as you showed up?” Tony groans, making  face.

“Exactly.”

“Ouch,” Tony huffs. It's good to know that he hasn’t done anything in particular to merit being assassinated, but in a strange way it’s a blow to his ego all the same. There are a dozen or more reasons for people to want him dead and still this was all about Loki.

“Who is this ‘powerful enemy?’” Tony asks when Loki neglects to carry the conversation forward.

“Thanos. The Mad Titan. He has many names,” Loki informs him, expression tightening whether in fear or anger, Tony doesn’t know.

“I don't like bad guys with many names. It gets confusing,” Tony quips lightly, returning a nod to a jogger headed in the other direction. He's glad that in this age of blu-tooth and wireless technology, he doesn't get so much as a second glance for talking to himself as he walks.

“He is the one who, through his minion, sent me to Midgard to conquer,” Loki says with uncharacteristic helpfulness and yeah, now Tony is starting to get the picture.

“So he wants you, what, dead? Repentant? For failing to conquer the Earth?” Tony asks, glancing at him out of the corner of his eye.

“I have long suspected that he was prepared for me to fail, if he didn't expect it outright. That battle was likely no more than a test,” Loki says with a grim frown, eyes focused on a vague point somewhere ahead of them. He only stills his feet because Tony comes to a full stop a pace behind him, staring in ill-concealed horror.

“ _A test_? For what?” he demands.

“Your strengths, perhaps. Reconnaissance for the forces that will follow,” Loki says, eyes roaming over the tense line of Tony's form.

“ _Will_ follow, not _might_ follow. You think we're going to be attacked again,” he says with dawning horror. Loki inclines his head slowly.

“Fuck. I have to tell Cap. We have to be ready for something like this—”

“It will not happen today. It could be years from now or even after your lifetime. There is no way to know. But I refuse to let you go running off when I’m in the middle of speaking to you,” Loki says firmly. It's a mark of how fond he's grown that he despises the idea of losing Tony's interest so easily right after he's arrived.

“You know I don't take orders from you,” Tony snaps playfully and Loki grins because he knows he's won.

“And yet here you are,” Loki smirks. They walk in silence for a short while, passing several perfectly acceptable coffee shops along the way. Loki considers commenting, but thinks better of it.

“Okay, so if this Thanos guy expected you to lose, why is it important he track you down now?” Tony asks curiously.

“If my theory holds true, he is likely angry that I lost the Tesseract and allowed it to be returned to Asgard. The Aesir were able to use it to remake the Bifrost and it is a powerful magical object besides. It was far from the most powerful weapon Thanos had at his disposal, but it represents a significant shift in power nonetheless,” Loki explains, keeping pace with him. Tony listens to every word, but he's been watching Loki for a while now trying to work out how he never seems to walk through people. No one else on the sidewalk can see him, and yet they never get close enough to so much as brush sleeves.

“Why did he need you to show up in my bedroom?” Tony asks, adjusting his path slightly to manipulate Loki onto a collision course with a young woman in a pink jacket. They pass and never touch despite the all of his best efforts, so Tony files it away as a question to ask another time.

“The prison in which I currently reside was built by Odin's grandfather and strengthened over the course of thousands of years. It's too well warded for Thanos to detect me there, but he could have heard a rumor that I have been interacting with you. I suspect you told someone about our meetings.”

It's not an accusation, not really, but Tony feels a pang of guilt anyway. He hasn’t told anyone he doesn’t trust implicitly, but that doesn’t mean no one else overheard.

“So he knows where you are now?” Tony asks and when Loki inclines his head again in reply, he carries on: “Did you know it was a trap before you showed up?”

“Yes,” Loki says simply, not meeting his eyes in a way that could be an accident but probably isn't.

“But you came anyway,” Tony says slowly, stating the obvious just to see what happens. Loki shoots him that look that calls him a fool without using words. Tony can only laugh in reply.

“Thanks,” Tony says and means it. “I like keeping all my vital organs and limbs as intact as possible.”

“If all that I have heard is true, that is far from the truth,” Loki says, lips curling in a smirk.

“Okay, so I drink a lot and the Palladium poisoning probably did a number on my body. Shut up,” Tony says, rolling his eyes dramatically.

“I was referring to how often you fly around in that gaudy tin can of yours. But that sounds like a story you will have to tell me,” Loki replies with a hint of levity. Tony only sighs at being caught out.

Finally, Tony chooses a coffee shop that meets his exacting standards and ducks inside, Loki a step behind. He orders, flirts with the barista and waits while Loki observes their fellow patrons with a critical eye.

His gaze often lingers too long because he knows they can't see him looking. Tony watches him watch other people and wonders if he should find it creepier than he does. What he doesn't know is that every time he looks away, Loki turns that gaze on him instead and that the tiniest crease of a frown creeps onto his lips when Tony almost-flirts with the handsome worker who hands him his coffee.

Loki accompanies him all the way back to the tower, answering as many questions as he can about Thanos and his many armies. It’s the most information Tony has ever gotten out of him about anything.

There are large, gaping holes in Loki’s knowledge and too many things he doesn’t want Tony to know, but he gives him what he can for now. He might as well since he went to the trouble to save his life.

“Wait, he wants to court Death? What the hell does that even mean?” Tony asks, stopping Loki in the middle of a sentence to ask about the sentence that came before.

“Mistress Death is a personification of death itself,” Loki explains with the same tone he might use on a small child.

“I love how you think saying things like that makes perfect sense,” Tony quips, giving him a nasty look.

Eventually, Tony resorts to pestering Loki about how he knew to arrive at exactly the moment he did.

“Telepathy? Can you read my mind? Were you watching me sleep?” he lists, hoping something will make Loki react.

Nothing does and Loki avoids the question with expert skill.

They get back to the tower and ride up in the Avengers’ private elevator. Steve meets them at the door, or rather, he meets Tony at the door and doesn’t so much as bat an eyelid at where Loki is standing. It’s amusing to be so close to someone who’d likely lash out at him immediately and without question and yet remain utterly unseen. Tony does an admirable job of ignoring him, or at least, he only looks his way when Rogers isn’t paying attention.

They bicker and Tony slaps him on the shoulder companionably. There’s a clear thread of new friendship between them hidden under layers and layers of how very different they are and how little they really know each other and Loki wonders if Tony can see it.

It’s strange to watch Tony interact with other people because Loki makes a point of always visiting him when he’s alone. Their bickering is more vicious, laced with more cruelty and more grins both, than the kind that Tony engages in with Steve. The verbal sparring Loki is watching now seems boring in comparison.

Tony fends Steve off eventually and makes his way down towards his workshop, shedding coat and scarf along the way. They’re about to enter when he turns abruptly and bars Loki’s path with a determined expression.

“You have to tell me how you knew or I’m not letting you in,” he explains stubbornly as if he actually has the ability to deny Loki entrance anywhere. But in this, giving in is easier than arguing about it because even if Loki were to win the argument, Tony would only shoot annoyed sighs and glances his way for the rest of the afternoon just because he knows Loki hates it.

“I will, but not standing in the doorway,” Loki says and feels a swell of smugness at the way that Tony is clearly caught off guard by his immediate compliance.

“Promise?” Tony demands, stepping aside when Loki nods in reply.

Loki doesn’t explain right away. In fact, he successfully evades Tony’s attempt to start the conversation time after time, proving that his nicknames are well earned in the process. Eventually, Tony resorts to bodily shoving him down into a chair, and glaring at him as if to say “don’t move” while he pours two tumblers of whiskey.

“You do know that won’t affect me?” Loki says with raised eyebrows and a hint of that old condescension.

“Who said either of these was for you?” Tony returns.

“You have a habit of giving people drinks when you want them to tell you something important. Did you know that?” Loki asks, reclining with his legs indecently far apart. Tony is torn between acting like an old-fashioned school mistress and telling him to sit better and just admiring the view.

“I’ve found it works out pretty well,” Tony says, downing one of the drinks and carrying the other with him when he moves to sit in the chair immediately across from Loki.

“It seems to me like it would be more useful to get the other person drunk, not yourself,” Loki teases.

“Are you telling me how to drink?” Tony says, raising his eyebrows.

“I wouldn’t dream of it. You’re clearly an expert,” Loki drawls, shifting his expression to something vaguely innocent to communicate the point.

“Good. Now fess up,” Tony demands.

“I suspect you aren’t going to find the answer as satisfactory as you think,” Loki warns, chuckling.

“I’ll be the judge of that,” Tony says, refusing to back down.

“I find that it’s much easier to use magic on you than it is the rest of this realm in the same way it’s easier to touch you than it is anything or anyone else,” Loki informs him.

“Because I’m, what was it you said? The key?” Tony asks, curious.

“It might be easier to use the word “gateway”. As you’re the only way I can get here at present, it was in my best interest to protect you,” Loki intones blandly, letting his eyes drift away from Tony.

“I thought I was more like your toy,” Tony comments, only mostly joking. He doesn’t expect the way that Loki looks at him briefly in consternation before his expression smooths out again.

“Perhaps you have multiple uses,” Loki says slowly, smirking to make sure the innuendo is understood.

“Oh, I’m plenty talented. Not that you’d know. So what does the magic have to do with it?” Tony carries on cheerfully.

“I used my magic on you when you weren’t paying attention some time ago—just something simple that would alert me if you were in danger,” Loki explains at last.

“But I’m in danger almost constantly these days. What about all those other times?” Tony frowns and when Loki gives him a very meaningful look says, “Holy shit. You’ve been there every time.”

“You managed just fine without my intervention up until recently,” Loki hums, skipping over Tony’s accusation entirely. It might as well be agreement as far as Tony is concerned.

“I’m going to go out on a limb here, but do you actually like me?” Tony says, leaning forward in his chair with ill-contained anticipation.

“You're infuriating. You're rude and insulting and you never listen to a word I say. You're reckless and sometimes I swear you're insane. I often want to strangle you,” Loki scoffs.

“Well, hey, you're the one who comes here to hang out—” Tony cuts in, clearly gearing up to be defensive.

“Be silent and let me finish. You drive me mad with alarming frequency, but every time without fail it only takes fives minutes, or ten minutes, or an hour for you to do something that reminds me why I like you again.”

“So you _do_ like me?” Tony grins, not entirely sure if all that he just heard is a compliment or not.

“It's difficult to describe.”

“That's never stopped you before,” he says and laughs when Loki huffs.

“Perhaps I do. But I am stronger alone without anyone else to worry about,” Loki says, almost hesitant. Thor, Odin, all the rest of Asgard, he’d hoped for so many years to win their approval thinking it would satisfy him, but in the end it brought only ruin. The chaos is better, he thinks, the selfish plans and tricks he performs only for himself and his own gain. He is not a prince of either Asgard or Jotunheim any longer; he is only Loki and he doesn’t need anyone else to complicate his plans.

“What's the worst feeling in the world? The one that really gets you?” Tony asks, switching tracks abruptly. Loki stares at him and realizes he's never really thought about it.

“Loneliness,” he says after a long pause. The word comes out of him before he's ready, but he knows it’s the truth when it does.  He should have said something else, a lie perhaps. But Tony nods like he knows and Loki thinks he can't, he couldn't possibly understand when he's surrounded by all the tiny, flickering lives of the other mortals on Midgard who flock to his beck and call.

“But it's easier to be angry, right?” Tony asks, voice falling to something softer and sadder and Loki's certain that somehow in his handful of years Tony has come to understand the same bone-deep weariness that has plagued Loki for millennia.

“Yes,” Loki replies, tracing the line of Tony's profile in the half-light. The sun is fading fast and Tony has made no move to ask JARVIS to turn on the artificial lights in the ceiling. Perhaps he likes it this way; Loki isn't sure.

Tony takes his time replying, but his lips quirk a little when he catches Loki watching him. Loki is used to being shrouded in silence, but somehow the lack of sound right this moment is jarring. He's used to the vibrance that is Tony, always talking, moving, telling him something about science or about someone on TV that Loki doesn't know or care about. His tone rises and falls frequently, shifting between excited and eager and bitingly sarcastic, but over time is all blurs into an even humming sound that has become the background noise of Loki’s life these days.

“The results could be catastrophic,” he says, and tells himself it's only to fill the silence and not because he wants someone to finally _understand_. He doesn't say that he's never been in love, but he always imagined it would be just as bad as all the anger and loneliness that has tormented him for years. Tony would take it wrong, or perhaps Tony would take it right and Loki would be in twice as much trouble.

“So what you're saying,” Tony says, not quite looking at him, “is that you like hating me because it means you won't like me _too much_?” Loki doesn't reply for several moments and right when Tony thinks he'll never grace such a accusation with a response at all, he nods his head just a little. It's a small gesture, but it feels a lot like a victory.

“If I touched you right now, would I be able to feel you?” he asks, draining the very last of his drink.

“I can make myself solid if you want me to ,” Loki replies, watching him with curious eyes.

“Sure. You do that,” Tony says, setting his empty tumbler on the nearest surface with the faint click of glass on glass.

“Alright,” Loki says, more curious by the second.

There's a beat and then,

“Did you do it?”

“Yes.”

And then Tony leans over and kisses him. It takes a tremendous amount of energy to project himself, solid, into the world like this, but Loki doesn't care because Tony's mouth is warm and he tastes like the expensive whiskey that he likes so much. It's easily the best thing he's tasted in years.

Then Tony is pulling away, face shifting subtly into an expression Loki's never seen before and he realizes he never had the chance to return the gesture. He'd just sat there, is still sitting there, surprised and motionless and Tony must already be thinking that he made the wrong call.

So Loki makes a soft, annoyed sound and chases after him, closes the gap between them again and kisses Tony like he intends to keep kissing him until he's within an inch of his life or Loki's magic runs out, whichever comes first. Tony's laughing against his lips, shifting his body to get that much closer and it gives Loki the chance to slide his tongue into that delicious, clever mouth and draw out a moan to replace the sound of gentle laughter.

“I'm not a good person,” Loki murmurs when they part to take a breath.

“Good thing I'm not either,” Tony tells him, smiling.

“You're an excellent liar, Tony Stark. But that wasn't one of your best,” Loki replies, kissing him one more time for good measure.


	2. Chapter 2

Tony isn’t sure why he ever thought their first time would be cautious or even overly gentle. That’s how it is with most people because they haven’t yet learned each other, but this is his and Loki’s pattern: they fight first with too much strength and then relax later once they’ve found the common ground between them.

Tony has always known but never really considered the implications of just how strong Loki is. Thor slips up sometimes, breaking things or making people flinch. But Loki, always in control, has never done anything of the sort, so it comes as something of a surprise Tony really should have expected that he’s just as strong as Thor and that he uses it to push Tony around exactly how he wants. Tony pushes back, of course he does, and about half the time Loki even allows it to happen.

Somehow they didn’t get around to having sex immediately the last time, an impressive turn of events all around. They’d just made out like teenagers for a while and then Loki had disappeared. The only difference had been that Loki had bothered to say goodbye that time.

A day later, he shows up in the tower hallway with a thunderous expression and a few choice words about “yet another visit from that _idiot_ ” right when Tony is headed for the kitchen to find a midnight snack.

He shoves Tony against the wall, which is as surprising as it is unexpectedly hot and proceeds to kiss him within an inch of his life and thank god everyone else is in bed because Tony thinks that explaining making out with thin air would be infinitely more difficult than explaining making out with Loki if someone were to catch them at it.

He grins and pulls back just enough to say, “Nice to see you too.” Loki makes an annoyed sound at being denied what he wants, even for a moment, but takes a step back all the same.

“Good evening,” he grits out and frowns when it makes Tony laugh.

“I never said I wanted you to stop. In fact, please don’t,” Tony says, curling his fingers around the shape of Loki’s hips just because he can now and propelling him backwards down the hallway.

He thinks briefly that it will be disappointing if there’s some sort of magical complication and Loki can’t have sex like he can’t drink when he’s here. But Loki doesn’t say anything to support this theory, only allows his frown to shift slowly into a lascivious smirk. So Tony lets the thought get whisked away like so many others.

“I want to hear you scream,” Loki murmurs and fuck if it doesn’t go straight to Tony’s cock. Loki presses close despite how much it slows their progress to run teeth and tongue along the curve of Tony’s ear and says, “or perhaps I’ll make you beg for it instead.”

“I don’t think you understand who it is you’re talking to,” Tony challenges with a smirk of his own. “You should be the one on your knees worshipping me.” He fumbles somewhere behind Loki for the door to his room, manages to get it open and then gropes a solid handful of Loki’s ass because really, it’s right there and he’s not going to waste the opportunity

“You seem to have forgotten which of us is the god,” Loki sneers, playful as he grinds his erection against the tight front of Tony’s pants, making him gasp. “But I might decide to be generous and grant your first request if you ask nicely.”

“Fuck,” Tony moans, the image of Loki kneeling between his legs springing fully formed into his mind.

“I will. But not yet,” Loki replies, pulling him in and then pushing him up against the inside of the door, making it snap shut loudly behind them with the force.

“Yeah, alright,” Tony says breathlessly, not completely sure what he just signed up for, but very interested in finding out.

Loki watches him with that devious smirk for just a moment too long, just to the point where Tony seriously considers throwing him onto the bed and telling him to get on with it. What he doesn’t expect is the way that Loki picks that moment to drop to his knees on Tony’s new, plush carpet and bring long fingers up to pull down Tony’s fly.

Tony sucks in a breath and rushes to help him, shoving his pants and his underwear down a few inches around his hips while Loki works to pull him free.

Tony meets his eyes when Loki looks up at him, pink tongue darting out over his lips as he pauses. It’s ridiculous, but he looks the same way he does when he’s trying to decide on the best way to attack something and Tony can’t decide if he should be scared or turned on or a little of both.

He gasps when Loki closes his mouth around his him, warm and wet, and takes more of him inch by inch until Tony is certain he’ll have to stop. But Loki is Loki and being predictable has never been his strong suit, so he takes Tony right down to the base before flicking eyes up to look at the way Tony’s mouth has fallen open in surprise and the way his eyes are flickering closed of their own accord.

Tony’s hips twitch helplessly when Loki swallows, slick and tight around him and he almost makes a noise he’s sure would have been embarrassing if he'd let it escape. Loki’s fingers curl around his hips and push so hard he suspects he’s going to bruise from it so that he’s held still against the wood and has to simply take whatever it is that Loki gives him.

"Been a while, huh? Little eager?" Tony teases, breath hitching somewhere in the middle.

Loki pulls back slowly, dragging the flat of his tongue all along the underside and teasing at the sensitive place just under the head that has Tony gasping again before he pulls off with a satisfied noise.

"You have no idea,” Loki replies, grinning darkly.

He gets gracefully to his feet, which is a crying shame as far as Tony is concerned, and spins them around to propel Tony towards the bed firmly. Tony manages to get out of his shirt and pants while walking backwards, a trick learned from years of practice, and lets Loki shove him onto his back in the center of the mattress.

“I’m curious whether gods live up to all the hype,” Tony laughs, arching his hips to help when Loki goes in to drag his underwear down and off completely.

“I’m curious whether you truly possess as much prowess as your world seems to think you do,” Loki challenges in kind, runnings hands up his thighs as he pushes them slightly apart.

He settles between Tony’s legs and leans down again to take him in his mouth with the most delicious suction. It turns out Loki is shockingly good at multi-tasking, undressing himself and sucking Tony’s cock like it’s his job at exactly the same time.

Finally, he’s naked and oh, but Tony wants to see all that newly exposed skin bared for him, wants to run his hands and his tongue along it to feel and taste.

Tony feels more than hears the pleased hum that Loki produces in response to the deep, keening noise Tony makes when Loki slides fingers into him, first one and then two before he’s quite ready. He mutters something largely unintelligible about lube in the table on the left side of the bed which Loki promptly ignores. But his fingers go suddenly slick with something Tony has absolutely no way of identifying but trusts is safe for human use. He says something of this nature to Loki, who curls his fingers in response and pulls off long enough to take a deep breath and chuckle against his hip.

“It would be a very creative way to poison someone,” he grins, sucking a dark bruise into the thin skin where Tony’s hip bone is close to the surface. Tony moans and tells him to get back to work, a command that only earns him another finger and another bruise.

Loki prepares him for far longer than Tony thinks is necessary, stroking and twisting and muttering encouragement all the while. He goes back to sucking him off sometimes, and stops other times, never letting him get any closer than the raw edge of desperation.

Tony makes a startled yelp when Loki finally flips him over and pushes his shoulders down against the covers. He’s halfway through concocting some snappy complaint about the treatment when Loki starts pushing in, filling him inch by solid inch and shoving every other thought from his mind except for the way that Loki feels splitting him open.

He takes his sweet time, which is as aggravating as it is perfect, dragging his cock out in a slow, perfect slide before pushing in a little harder, a little more urgent the next time and reveling in the way that the action pushes sharp breaths and small noises out of Tony’s open mouth.

“More, fuck, more,” Tony demands, pushing back against him and that’s when Loki’s control finally snaps. The next thrust is punishing and so is the one after that makes them both groan, loud and broken into the darkened room.

Tony’s cock is hot and heavy between his legs when Loki reaches to stroke him.

“Loki,” Tony chokes out as he tries to work out a rhythm that will allow him to push back and take Loki deeper and then thrust forward into his hand in one smooth motion. They manage it eventually and by then Loki is half mad with want for him, thrusting hard and fast while Tony encourages him with scattered words and pleased noises.

He doesn’t scream the way Loki wanted when he comes, though he does come first and muffles his cry into the nearest pillow, too conscious of some of his team remembers sleeping in the rooms nearby.

It’s the way that Tony’s body clenches around him that makes Loki's hips stutter and then he's pushing in deep and coming with a surprised gasp. Tony wishes he could see the way Loki looks when he comes, but it's impossible from where he is now, held down against the sheets by Loki's hand spread flat between his shoulder blades, fingertips brushing the nape of his neck. He could break the hold easily if he wanted, but he finds he’s surprisingly okay with it.

"I wish I could see you come," he mutters lazily into the pillow and correctly interprets Loki's hitched breath as an agreement. What he doesn't expect is for Loki to flip him over and to be hard again, or still, Tony doesn't know. He slides back in, making Tony gasp and groan because his body still feels sensitive, electric to touch and far from ready for another round. He can already feel the beginning of an ache that will likely stay with him through tomorrow.

Loki starts moving again, pace slow and careful, hands skating over Tony's stomach and sides in comforting arcs. There's no way he really cares about how tired Tony is, but there's no other explanation either. The slide is slicker this time with Loki's come and it isn't long before Loki's control starts to slip again, his hips snapping forward a little too hard, a little too fast. But Tony thinks it's probably worth a little extra soreness in the morning because this time he gets to watch all the expressions that flicker across Loki's face and hear the little gasps that escape his mouth when he isn't paying attention. He revels in the fact that all he has to do is clench a little or roll his hips to make Loki react. One time he even gains a surprised keening noise for his trouble and even though he's not able to get it out of Loki again, he still feels incredibly smug about it.

"Is this how all gods are? No recovery time?" Tony says, aiming for teasing but ending up closer to breathless. Loki huffs a laugh, leans down to suck and bite a deep purple bruise into his shoulder and never answers the question.

Loki moans deliciously when Tony reaches up to twist fingers into his hair and that's something Tony will have to pencil into the book. One piece of data doesn't prove a theory, but he's planning on running a few more trials.

He isn't sure when he started thinking of this as something that's likely to happen again and repeatedly at that, but he finds that he doesn't mind the idea nearly as much as he probably should.

The look on Loki's face when he comes the second time is even better than Tony expected, his expression so much more honest and open than Tony has yet seen. His mouth falls open and he moans obscenely, rolling hips lazily through it until he's completely finished.

When Loki falls onto the bed next to him and presses close, his weight is solid and warm. There's a moment where Tony thinks it’s getting harder to remember that Loki might not be real and then Loki kisses him and anything else flies out the window in favor of Loki's lips and tongue and the expert way he seems to know how to use both.

+

Tony leans back in his chair, reaches into a bag of dried blueberries and looks over the old schematic for the Mark 15 Stealth Suit. If he’s going to be lying to the press about his impressive new stealth technology, he might as well make it a reality and have something to show for himself. It’s only an added bonus that a new generation of retro reflective panels are exactly the kind of helicarrier upgrade he could hold over Fury’s head the next time he needs something important.

He barely bats an eyelash when Loki is suddenly sitting on his worktop about three feet from his right hand and looking down at him lazily.

Tony holds out the bag with a flourish, offering the contents to Loki who only raises his eyebrows slightly in reply.

“Can’t eat when you're here either?” he asks, picking out a chance to learn more about the fine details of Loki’s magic.

“No.”

“Too bad. They’re good. Do you have blueberries on Asgard?” he says, grinning slightly as he pops another few into his mouth.

Loki hums, lips curving into the smile that usually means he’s plotting something. Tony smirks, waits, and then Loki is curling fingers into his hair and pulling a little harder than is really necessary to bring him closer and fit their mouths together. Even Loki’s kisses are complex and how that’s possible Tony doesn’t know, but he’s often forced to simply keep up, giving as good as he gets and no more than that.

“Yes, I have had them,” Loki says when he finally pulls away, licking his lips with that sinful tongue while Tony tries to remember how to breathe.

“And you had to do that to remember?” Tony says breathlessly.

“The Aesir name for them is different, but the taste is the same,” Loki sighs like Tony really should have been able to figure that out on his own.

“Shouldn’t the Allspeak take care of that?” Tony asks, curious, and smiles when Loki’s eyebrows draw together in consternation

“How do you know about the Allspeak?” Loki inquires. It’s possible Thor has mentioned it, but he was under the impression that Tony and Thor don’t speak nearly enough to be exchanging tidbits like that. Still, Thor always had a big mouth.

“Like most people with the internet, I do have access to Wikipedia,” Tony informs him. “You should read the article on yourself.”

“Why?”

“Because you’ll hate it and it’ll be hilarious,” Tony replies, already bringing up the page on a Starkpad he grabs from a nearby surface.

Loki makes a noise that manages to communicate just how much disdain he has for the idea without even being a word, but takes the tablet when it’s handed to him, eyes dropping to skim over the words on the screen. Tony continues to munch on blueberries, eyes roving over Loki shamelessly as he reads. Loki probably knows he’s doing it, but he doesn’t intend to stop unless Loki tells him to.

“There are no words,” Loki says with a roll of his eyes and a sigh, setting the tablet aside carefully on the table next to him.

“That’s a first,” Tony snarks, earning a huff and a token glare.

“The stories you mortals come up with are ridiculous,” he says.

“You should see the one on Thor,” Tony says and just like that Loki’s eyes light up with glee and he reaches for the tablet again.

“The blue links go to other pages,” Tony says, tossing the now-empty foil bag in his hand towards the trashcan. It looks like it’s going to go in and then it vears just slightly off course in a way Tony is certain has nothing to do with physics and everything to do with a certain God of Mischief.

“I’m not an _idiot_ ,” Loki replies without looking up and that settles that question. Loki clearly knows something about how to use the internet, so Tony decides to leave him alone. He wheels back over to his worktop and starts stripping the virtual suit piece by piece, tossing all the unnecessary components into a little virtual trashcan. It’s a bit cheesy, even he knows it, but he enjoys it just like he enjoys the big version that requires him to throw unwanted files like softballs at a target and that glows and flashes when he gets the angle right.

Loki reads for a long time, jumping from page to page all through the convoluted world of Norse mythology condensed and laid out for him by the pages of Wikipedia. Tony works, replacing parts here and fiddling with the balances of metals in the alloy there and when he brushes idle fingers along the curve of Loki’s knee, neither of them mention it and he doesn’t immediately pull his hand away.

He sinks into his work, losing track of everything else as the strings of ideas begin to slot into place as working pieces of metal, silicon, plastic and a dozen other things in the design. It’s only when he feels Loki’s boot toe digging into his thigh that he’s pulled out again.

“Anthony,” Loki says with the tone of someone who’s said it a few times before.

“I wish you wouldn’t call me that,” Tony says absently, focusing on Loki and noting that he’s discarded the Starkpad at last.

“How’d you like Thor’s page?”

“It was… informative,” Loki says with a devious grin.

“Apparently, you both make lovely women. Or at least the giants think so,” Tony laughs, leaning back in his chair.

“Only half true. I do, he doesn’t,” Loki replies with just enough sincerity to give Tony pause as he tries to work out of this is a joke or not.

“Wait, you’re just fucking with me, right?” Tony asks, suddenly far too curious.

“Of course,” the sly bastard replies with a coy smirk. Tony never quite manages to find out if he was telling the truth or not.

“The page on you was also very informative,” Loki continues, amused.

“You’ve been busy. Learn anything good?” Tony quips back.

“You have a very impressive reputation,” he replies. “But more interesting was the section about that object embedded in your chest.”

Tony hesitates, smile slipping just a little. There’s a lot of speculation about his arc reactor floating around on the internet, but it’s a topic he tends to keep close to his chest.

“What about it?” he asks, all faux-casualness as he leans back in his chair and looks up at Loki.

“The most popular theory is that you put it into your own chest to run that armor of yours,” Loki says, watching him so closely it makes Tony vaguely uncomfortable.

“The suits have their own arc reactors,” Tony says evasively.

“So the one in your chest serves another purpose,” Loki observes, still too-intense.

“Something like that.”

“Tell me what I want to know, Anthony,” Loki demands.

“Why? You constantly refuse to tell me things. Fair’s fair,” Tony shoots back, making Loki roll his eyes dramatically.

“Have you ever known me to be fair?” Loki says and no, Tony thinks, he really hasn’t. But it was worth a shot anyway.

“Tell me why you’re so interested first. Maybe then I’ll consider it,” he says.

“If you recall, your device stopped me from controlling you,” Loki tells him. There’s more: the fact that it’s Tony’s arc reactor specifically that houses the accidental spark of magic that allows Loki’s visits. But that’s not information Tony needs to know just yet.

“Maybe that’s exactly why I shouldn’t tell you anything about it,” Tony argues.

“Anthony.”

“Stop calling me that.”

“Tony.”

“It keeps me alive,” he says shortly. There, he thinks, he said it. Except there’s no chance in hell Loki isn’t going to have more questions.

He watches as Loki stretches fingers out towards him and sucks in a breath when they land on the reactor with only a thin layer of fabric between skin and tempered glass. There’s a spreading warmth he identifies as magic and it sends a jolt of fear through him automatically. He remembers that Loki is dangerous and incredibly unpredictable, but then he thinks that if Loki was going to do something, he could easily have done it long before now.

“There’s something in you, right next to your heart,” Loki says calmly without pulling away.

“Shrapnel. From one of my own weapons, actually, and if that isn’t the shittiest kind of irony, I don’t know what is,” Tony snorts, relaxing just a little.

“The device keeps it out,” Loki says, not a question.

“You’re quick on the uptake.”

“It was never designed to resist magic,” Loki sighs.

“No, I just got lucky,” Tony says with a grin.

Loki’s entire plan, thwarted by accident. It’s a pity because seeing Iron Man fight all the Avengers at once would have been a sight to behold. But in the end, it was perhaps more fortunate that the Avengers defeated Loki and returned him to Asgard. He despises his prison, but he knows it’s a blessing compared to whatever horrors Thanos might have had planned for him after his victory.

"One day you will have to tell me more of that story," Loki says.

"Maybe."

+

Being friends with Rhodey has always been different than being friends with other people. But lately the thing that's struck Tony is how different it is to know someone who has a suit a lot like his and who isn't limited by distance the same way other people are.

Tony's gotten used to the way that no, normal people can't just meet him in California one day and London the next without a lot of exhausting hours of travel. But Rhodey can be in the Middle East running errands for the government and Tony can call him up and crack a few jokes and demand Rhodey meet him for lunch in Manhattan and expect that it’ll actually happen. Rhodey will always find something to bitch at him companionably about, but it's almost never the distance.

“There are people who need my time, Tony,” Rhodey complains over their video call. He’s flying somewhere over Saudi Arabian airspace at the moment, although he won’t be for much longer if he keeps up his current speed.

“Yes, but they’re less fun,” Tony quips with a sunny smile and then goes in for the bribery. “Come on. We’ll go wherever you want.”

Rhodey comes after all and Tony meets him in the air above New York, doing a few loops around the bigger, gray mass of War Machine just to be annoying.

“Is that a new one?” Rhodey asks, opening up a comm channel.

“Sure is. Not even a scratch yet,” Tony boasts, glad that for once his entire HUD is a peaceful blue with not a speck of emergency red to be seen.

“Scratches aren’t usually your problem. More like missing limbs,” Rhodey tells him, a smile playing on his lips.

“I have all my limbs, thank you very much,” Tony mutters petulantly.

They land in front of Rhodey’s favorite burger joint and really, he’s so predictable that Tony knew where they were going even without asking. But he doesn’t say a word and steps out of the suit, striding away with Rhodey a step behind.

“You’re paying,” Rhodey grouches at him as they stand inside. Tony just nods like it’s a given, eyes skimming contemplatively over the menu board hanging above them.

“So I’m having sex with Loki,” Tony says after a moment and when he turns his head to meet Rhodey’s wide-eyed stare, thinks that maybe he could have dropped that bomb a little more gracefully. But then again, how exactly does one tell their best friend that they’re boning an imprisoned norse deity?

“That is seriously the worst joke I have ever heard,” Rhodey says like he’s currently praying to anyone who will listen that Tony is yanking his chain but he knows he’s probably not that lucky.

“It really is, isn’t it? Did you ever notice that the milkshakes here taste like sunflower seeds? I could never figure it out,” Tony says amiably, looking back up at the menu again to decide what he wants.

“Oh, no you don’t. Spill,” Rhodey says and then looks down at the pair of children standing behind him in line and sighs deeply. “Once we find a table.”

They order and wait. Tony sighs a few autographs and they smile for a photo together before people move on with their food and their lives. Rhodey has already prepared at least a dozen scenarios in his head and all the possible ways he might have to drag Tony’s ass out of the fire again by the time they find a semi-secluded corner booth. They sit down with burgers piled high with bacon, lettuce, tomatoes and cheese. Tony’s usually the healthy one, but it seems today that he’s decided he needs something greasy to get through the discussion that will follow.

“Is this why you wanted to have lunch?” Rhodey accuses with a sigh. He’s so used to antics like this it’s almost depressing.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Tony says, paying more attention to adding ketchup to his fries than is strictly necessary.

“You’re either going to tell me or I’m going to beat it out of you. You might as well rip the bandaid off now,” Rhodey says with an expression that’s somehow both amused and stern. It's an expresion he has perfected with time.

Tony makes a face at him, takes a bite of his burger, considers some more and then says, “I’m the only one who can see him. He says he’s being held in some Asgardian jail cell and using astral projection or whatever to show up in my tower like a very bored, ill-tempered house guest.”

“And you believe this?” Rhodey says, eyebrows climbing steadily higher.

“I don’t know if he’s telling me everything, but I don’t think he’s lying. He’s very talented, in case you were wondering,” Tony says with a smirk.

“I really wasn’t. Please don’t go any further down that road with me,” Rhoday groans with a wincing expression around his eyes.

“I’ve thought about this a lot and I just can’t find an end game. He’s damn smart, no question about that, but I can’t see how visiting me like this does him any good.” Tony doesn’t mention it, but he’s still stuck on the idea that Loki—crazy, manic, powerful Loki—thinks he’s anything more than another annoying, mortal pest.

“You know, I was going to ask how “visiting” turned into “screwing” and then I remembered this is you we’re talking about,” Rhodey groans, resolutely keeping a straight face. It’s a battle he’s never quite figured out how to win between thinking Tony is hilarious and trying to act like the sane, level-headed one in this relationship.

“I imagine it’s pretty lonely in Asgardian prison, not to mention someone might be watching at all times. I wouldn’t put it past the guy to have an exhibitionist streak, but then again, he is pretty private about things like why he’s such a jackass to his brother.”

“He’s a bad guy, Tony. You and I are supposed to fight bad guys, not have sex with them,” Rhodey reminds him, leaning a little closer as though it will help ensure they won’t be overheard.

“Good guy, bad guy, it’s all so black and white,” Tony says dismissively.

“Don’t tell me you’re starting to side with him—”

“Of course not! If anything, he’s starting to side with me,” Tony interjects, only a little bit smug.

“I don’t believe that for a second,” Rhodey tosses back.

“I didn’t say the Avengers. Just me. He sort-of admitted to liking me and hating me at the same time. It wasn’t the most straightforward thing he’s ever said,” Tony continues eagerly, burger already half-forgotten.

“Oh, because that’s a fantastic declaration of loyalty,” Rhodey groans. “What happens if he uses this against you? Against all of us? It sounds to me like he has you wrapped around his finger.”

“I’m not wrapped around anyone’s finger, least of all his,” Tony replies with an expressive gesture. “Okay, you want proof? You remember that assassin who managed to get into the tower last month?”

“I’ve been meaning to ask you about that. I can smell Pepper’s PR bullshit from a mile off, especially where you’re concerned,” Rhodey says. He opens his mouth to ask about Pepper just after because there’s no way in hell Tony isn’t still torn up about that, even if he isn’t talking about it. If Tony has the chance to talk about exciting new projects instead of feelings, he’ll almost always jump for it and Loki sounds a whole lot like he might be the most dangerous project Tony has ever gotten himself involved in. Then again, maybe Loki’s a rebound and Rhodey really doesn’t want to know how that revelation is going to go if he is.

“That was Prince Charming. He showed up just in the nick of time and attacked my attacker,” Tony says, cutting him off mid-thought.

“So that makes you the damsel in distress?” is the first retort Rhodey can think of, even before various scoldings about not biting off more than he can chew.

“You wound my masculinity,” Tony says, rolling his eyes.

“But seriously, I’m impressed. Seven billion people on this planet and you get involved with some ancient Norse deity. Saving you once doesn’t mean he’s suddenly your friend,” Rhodey says.

“I guess humans got too vanilla,” Tony jokes, picking up a fry and examining it for a moment before eating it. “And I didn’t say we were friends.”

“Aren’t you concerned he’s using you?” Rhodey questions.

“Honestly? Of course I am. But what I’m really concerned about is that he might really mean it. What if he's decided that I’m the only one in the universe for him? I’m the worst possible candidate to be "the one" for a psychotic, possibly immortal god!"

“That, is actually terrifying to think about,” Rhodey admits slowly. It sounds like a disaster waiting to happen. “But I think it’s also important to ask if you mean it.”

He can tell from Tony’s expression that he managed to catch him off guard, but that’s Tony’s fault and not his for forgetting that Rhodey knows too much about him.

“Does it matter?” he asks evasively.

“Uh, yes?” Rhodey urges, raising his eyebrows.

“I haven’t figured it out yet,” Tony replies. But it’s not a no and that’s concerning in and of itself because if there’s anything Tony is good at, it’s saying no.

“Tony,” he sighs—a single word to sum up all the exhausted tolerance and concern he has.

“I’ll get back to you on that one,” Tony says just before digging back into his burger.

+

Loki appears in the workshop to find it shrouded in darkness save for a single yellow light on the far side. He approaches with an unconscious silence born of years of practice, no more than a dark shape against the pale-dark sky outside the windows. The stars here are still pitiful, mostly blotted out by the multitude of lights that the mortals in this city insist on leaving on every hour of the day. What had Tony called it? “Light pollution.” The term seems more than appropriate.

Approaching the light reveals first the back of a sofa and then, as he moves closer, Tony’s sleeping form. Loki is a little surprised to find him here, stretched out on the sofa he keeps in the corner of his lab for just this purpose instead of passed out in his bed. He looks dirty and exhausted, like this is the first sleep he's had in days. Frankly, it probably is and Loki almost feels sorry to wake him except that Loki is feeling selfish and just now he’d rather hear Tony’s voice and see the wrinkles around his eyes when he laughs than stay and watch him sleep. Tony would likely complain about missing him in any case.

“Tony,” he says calmly and brushes knuckles across the bare, warm skin of his shoulder. Tony's eyes snap open, focusing on him almost immediately, but he doesn't tense or move to get up. Loki has never forgotten than Tony is a warrior too and little things like this, the quick, almost scared jump from sleep to waking, only serve as a reminder of this fact. A frowns plays at Tony’s lips and the line between his eyebrows deepens in confusion.

“Loki? What time is it?” he mutters, shifting his head to focus on the dim numbers of a clock across the room.

“Very late. I misjudged the time difference between Midgard and Asgard. It seems to have slipped again,” Loki tells him, voice low so as not to jar the moment.

Tony swings his legs off the couch and sits up in one gesture, rubbing his hands across his face and scrubbing them into his eyes to wake himself up. Loki sits in the vacated space beside him and is gratified when Tony doesn’t so much as comment.

“Slipped? How does time the time difference work between here and there?” Tony asks, voice rough with sleep.

“Are you awake enough to discuss interdimensional, space-time calculations?” Loki returns, a smile curling at his lips.

“I could be? But no, not really. Tell me next time,” Tony sighs. “Bored again?”

“Interminably.”

Tony huffs and leans back on the cushions, filling the sliver of space Loki had left between them to press up all along his side. Loki's almost always solid these days which is something Tony does occasionally find the time to wonder about. He wonders about it now, as he tilts his head back against the back of the sofa exposing the thin skin of his throat as his eyes drift closed of their own accord. Loki doesn't speak, only leans ever so slightly into his side in a way he could easily deny later, and it's a strange kind of peace that Tony never would have expected, one he probably would have laughed at if it had been explained to him months before.

He’s very nearly asleep again when Loki settles a careful hand on his thigh, apparently with no real purpose other than to touch. His fingers stroke back and forth in small, careful movements, flattening non-existent wrinkles in the denim. It doesn’t seem like it’s meant to be at all sexual which is, bizarrely, the thing that strikes Tony. A Loki bent on enthusiastic sex is something he could understand and handle just as easily, but right now Tony doesn’t know what he wants or if he even wants anything at all. But that’s par for the course too; Loki has always been a riddle wrapped in a mystery.

“You're quieter than I expected you to be,” Tony murmurs apropos of nothing and without opening his eyes.

“Am I?” Loki replies, eyes lifting to look at Tony’s face.

“Or, I don't know, you just don't use that many words,” Tony says without moving.

“I’m not certain I know what the point of this discussion is. And anyway, you do that for me,” Loki teases, low and calm. Tony can hear the smile even if he doesn’t look for it.

“Before, I only knew you when you were making these grand speeches and Thor always talks about you having a silver tongue. But once you stop hissing at people about world domination or ripping out their guts, you're... just not what I expected,” he admits. He’s tired and he thinks stubbornly that he can’t be blamed if his words aren’t as eloquent as they should be.

“Better or worse?” Loki asks, still tracing idle patterns into his thigh with long fingers.

“Better, mostly. You can learn a lot about a guy by the way he fights, but it’ll never be anywhere close to everything there is to learn about him.”

“I doubt you want to know everything about me,” Loki says neutrally, eyes roving over the shapes of machinery and furniture in the darkness.

“Is it any worse than what I already know? I figure since we’re starting from the bottom, it can only get better from here. Then again, I really shouldn’t start liking you. The guy who attacked New York and brought all those aliens through a hole in the sky and everything. Very bad idea,” Tony hums, bumping shoulder against Loki’s when he shrugs slightly.

“You don't need to like me. It would be incredibly stupid of you to do so,” Loki tells him with a dangerous edge to his voice.

“You think I don't know that?” Tony quips, easy and fearless.

“I think you know it very well. That's exactly the problem,” Loki shoots back.

“Okay, so why’d you do it? Explain the reasoning behind your mayhem,” Tony says, finally opening his eyes and turning his head to look at Loki’s profile. He looks different in the warm, soft light of the single lamp Tony left on instead of the glaring overhead fluorescents of Fury’s helicarrier Hulk cage. He looks healthier, less like he climbed out of a dumpster and hasn’t showered in a month and more like he’s had time to eat and sleep as much as he liked. He’s improved even since the first time he visited Tony, his hair curling neatly around his shoulders. Funny, that his hair should be so much an indicator of how well he is, but somehow that’s what it’s become.

“... Do you want me to tell you something to make it better? That my mind was being controlled just like Clint Barton's perhaps?” Loki says after a moment of pause.

“Is that true?”

“No.”

“I didn't think so.”

“I did it because I wanted to do it,” Loki says simply, like that’s all that matters.

“But why,” Tony implores because Loki is a pain in his ass and he still wants to know the whole story or at least as much of it as he can pry out.

Loki sighs, looking at him with an expression weighed down by all the centuries he's been alive.

“Heroes, villains, people with simple reasons for doing things—they only exist in stories, Tony. I’m not what you would call a villain simply for the sake of being evil any more than you’re a hero just for the sake of being good. It would take me an age to explain it all to you and even then I'm not certain I know where to start or if you would understand.”

“Try anyway.”

Then, for a reason he doesn't completely understand, Loki does. There’s no reason for him to tell this man, no reason to bare his heart. But then, he can’t quite think of a reason not to, either.

He begins by telling Tony of the day he ruined Thor's coronation because it's as good a place to start as any and follows the thread of his story to Jotunheim and to Midgard, recounts how he planned to use the Bifrost to destroy the place of his birth and how, when Thor wanted nothing more than to pull him back up and into his arms, Loki looked up into his father’s eyes and made the choice to let go.

The words feel like ash on his tongue and he wonders then if this is the taste of regret. He’s never stood still and looked at his own regrets before, always moving forward instead in a desperate bid to climb higher out of his quickly deepening pit towards any pinprick of light and hope he can find. He can’t change his past and now it seems he's ruined any chance he ever had for a future, so he has all the time in the universe to spend examining himself a little through Tony’s eyes.

“Before I left for Earth through the Tesseract, I stood alone on the edge of a precipice and wondered if I was heading into my ruin or my salvation,” Loki murmurs, voice pitched low and tired.

“And?” Tony prompts, eyes trained on him with barely restrained interest.

Loki smiles, all teeth and no mirth and says, “I realized I was a fool for asking. There was never a way in which that stupid venture would turn out in my favor. It would be the end of me either way, but _damned_ if I was going to die like an animal at Thanos' feet when he became bored of torturing me. I would go and fight with every last ounce of my magic and strength until the very last; I would be destroyed, but I would be remembered as the god I am,” Loki says, voice rising into the beginning of a snarl.

Tony's eyes flick down to his hands and he notices the way Loki is shaking, just a little, with some pent up emotion that could be anger but could just as easily be remembered fear. Loki follows his gaze and notices a moment later, surprised as though he hadn’t noticed. He jerks into motion to hide his hands and Tony fumbles after them, just barely managing to catch one and then the other on his second try, grappling with Loki for a moment before Loki acquiesces and goes still again.

“You were tortured,” Tony says after some consideration. Loki nods, frowning and looking away. He doesn't want this to be the thing that Tony latches onto, the thing that he'll twist into an excuse to tell himself that Loki was a victim, that he isn't so bad after all.

Tony falls uncharacteristically quiet then, brushing thumbs over the backs of his hands and watching him with eyes that, when Loki looks, contain none of the scorn or pity he expected. He pushes on, forcing himself not to choke on the words when he speaks of the treatment he received at the hands of The Mad Titan and his Other. He tries to explain in words Tony will understand how leading an army to conquer Earth was better than the alternative, even though he knew he would never rule as he'd been promised, likely wouldn't even succeed. Perhaps he'd even die in battle in the way that Thor always wanted, gold and shining with power.

“It was my choice,” Loki tells him at last. He meets Tony’s eyes because he tells himself he’s not scared of what Tony will have to say. He’s only a mortal and barely matters.

“I know. I’m not saying you should have martyred yourself for Earth. I’m actually pretty sure that’s the last thing you’d ever do. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t an option.”

“The choice of a hero, perhaps?” Loki says, sneering.

“Or an idiot,” Tony replies mildly.

“I’ve found that there’s not always a difference between the two.”

Tony laughs at that, hands slipping away self-consciously like he only just noticed he forgot to let go. Loki doesn’t miss them, not quite, but he doesn’t welcome their loss either.

“I know what it’s like to have that many lives on your conscience,” Tony tells him casually, like it’s just meaningless conversation. He looks away, but Loki sees the flicker of movement that betrays the lie; it costs Tony to bring this up.

“What did you do?” Loki asks after a beat, curious despite himself. He's only ever known Tony as he is now: a genius and the best kind of madman with too sharp a wit and too quick a tongue who’d die for strangers given half a chance.

“I became a superhero,” Tony replies, quirking a smile. “And maybe, if you look from just the right angle and squint a little, a better person.”

“If you're the best that Midgard has to offer, I am sorely disappointed,” Loki sighs, falling into the rhythm of their banter as if with long practice.

“I said a better person, not a good one,” Tony chuckles. “You should be haunting someone else if you want a good person to talk to.”

“Like Captain Rogers?”

“You could do better. He's a good guy, means well, but he's no paragon of virtue any more than the rest of us. We punch people in the face for a living and he's kind of an asshole when he feels like it,” Tony rambles off, and Loki gets the impression there’s a story for another time in there somewhere.

Loki relaxes back, thinking, and goes back to stroking fingers along Tony’s leg just for something to do with his hand. It’s been a long time since he was allowed to touch someone without purpose and longer still since he wanted to.

“That was a poor excuse for a story,” he says eventually. “You left out everything interesting.”

“What, like how they made me do their laundry?” Tony chuckles.

“No, like what _happened_ ,” Loki says with a slow smile.

Tony gives a surprised laugh and figures that Loki told his tragic tale, it's probably time Tony returned the gesture. He could learn most of it just from using Google and Tony knows he knows how to do that, alien from another planet or no. But he suspects Loki would insist on hearing it from him anyway, might mention something about all the little details Tony never told the public. Probably, he just wants something to entertain him for a while longer.

So Tony tells him, and the words come more easily than he expected once he gets started. Time doesn’t always heal wounds like the saying goes, but it does sometimes give someone the time to learn to bear them.

Eventually, there’s no more to tell and Loki has run out of questions. They’re still sitting side by side and Tony feels wrung out and tired as he watches the slowly growing lightness on the horizon that warns of the coming dawn. He’s just about to fall asleep again when Loki rises in a single, smooth motion and turns to look down at him with a slight frown. Tony’s about to murmur a question that has a fifty-fifty chance of being intelligible when Loki leans down and picks him up.

Tony makes a loud, indignant sound and tries to twist out of his grasp.

“What the hell—” he starts and then chokes on the next word when the colors of the workshop blur, shift and resolve themselves into the shapes of his bedroom.

“You would have slept on that sofa all day,” Loki tells him like it’s an excuse for manhandling Tony when he’s perfectly capable of walking on his own, thank you very much.

"This isn't even difficult for you, is it?" Tony complains, still trying to get away.

"Only when you squirm,” Loki says, annoyed, and Tony yelps when he feels something like electricity spark into him from Loki’s fingertips.

"I do not- this isn't fair. It's a blow to my masculinity. You and your freaky strength—" Tony complains all in a rush. Loki zaps him again to try to make him stay still, but it only makes Tony yelp again and jerk so hard Loki can’t help but drop him. He manages to get him onto his bed at least, which is something of a victory, but he ends up in an awkward sprawl and manages to drag Loki down on top of him in revenge a moment later.

There’s a second or two where their faces are an inch apart and Loki has one leg between his and one hand braced on the bed while the other presses too hard into Tony’s stomach. Then Tony starts laughing like an idiot and Loki makes the most disgusted sound he can manage and tries to pull away. Tony twists fingers into the nearest piece of Loki’s collar that he can find and drags him back in so hard Loki accidentally elbows him and it’s so, so stupidly like wrestling Thor when they were children with nothing better to do that it almost makes him angry. But Tony kisses him and that’s not at all like wrestling Thor, so he gives in and kisses back because he knows that at least it will make Tony go still for long enough for Loki to regain some semblance of control over the situation.

He ends up with knees on either side of Tony’s hips and arms bracketing his shoulders because it’s straightforward and it makes sense and gives him perfect access to do all the wicked, wicked things to Tony’s mouth that he knows will earn him a few of his favorite noises. Tony slides questing hands over his hips and up under the hem of his shirt to bracket his waist as if he could hope to hold Loki in place if Loki wanted to move.

“You presume to control a god?” Loki growls, biting at his lip. “The ego on you is astounding.”

Tony laughs and rolls his hips up in a slow, sinuous arc that makes both of them gasp quietly. Loki huffs and rocks his hips back down sharply half in reprimand and half in eager agreement. The determined look on Loki’s face is the final straw that makes Tony go still beneath him and just let him do what he wants.

Loki's really just rutting against him, a slow, torturous roll and slide of hips that's just on the edge of driving Tony out of his mind. He wants more and now, but Loki keeps his rhythm as he moves and gasps against the skin of Tony's shoulder and along the line of his throat.

Tony sucks a bruise into the bit of Loki’s neck that’s exposed to him and although he suspects it will fade away again before long if Thor’s healing factor is any indication, it’s something to admire for the time being.

“You’re still wearing clothing,” Tony complains breathlessly, tugging Loki’s shirt up along the length of his torso.

“You’re still speaking,” Loki counters as though it’s just as much an annoyance as the layers of leather and fabric between them. It only takes a thought to remove his own clothing and a second longer to gather the magic to render Tony naked under him, exposing the lines of his body for Loki to follow with his fingers and the flats of his palms.

“That’s so fucking convenient,” Tony moans, shifting one hand up to spread fingers across the curve of his spine and dropping the other between their bodies to take them both in hand. He grins at the sharp breath Loki takes with the first stroke and the way his eyes flutter with the second, so Loki has no choice but to kiss him again just to wipe the unacceptably smug expression from his face.

Tony considers flipping them over, but decides in the end that he likes the slow, lazy way Loki thrusts into his hand and kisses him until Tony has to tip his head away and gasp for air. It gives Loki the chance to run his tongue along the tendons of his neck and that’s not bad either, so Tony lets him keep it up, drops his head back and closes his eyes.

A broken sound accidentally escapes his lips when he tries to speed up and Loki bites down in retaliation, hard enough to make his displeasure known. Tony concedes and slows down, but retaliates by experimenting with twisting his wrist and rubbing his thumb over every sensitive place he can find until he finds just the right combination to make Loki buck against him sharply.

“Tony,” he gasps like he’s surprised and really, Loki might be old, but he really should have expected that Tony’s reputation isn’t all empty promises. Tony goes still just to see what happens, fingers still curled around the pair of them loosely but without any real pressure. It turns out that doing that when Loki’s eyes are this dark and filled with what looks a lot like hunger is a terrible idea because Loki makes an angry sound and bats Tony’s hand to replace it with his own.

But then Loki’s long, agile fingers are working them and he knows exactly what he’s doing, so Tony thinks maybe it’s actually pretty serendipitous after all. It gets even better when Loki uses some kind of magic on him. Tony never thought he’d like that, probably would have objected violently if Loki had suggested getting untested magic that close to his dick. But as it turns out, it’s actually pretty incredible and sends sharp-soft waves of something up and out through every part of his body.

“Loki—” he gasps and then says it again because Loki’s breath hitches in response the first time and he wants to see if it happens again. It does and Tony has just enough brain cells left to process that Loki likes having his name said in that kind of reverent tone like he’s the only other person in their little universe. He keeps the third time for when Loki’s breath has gone all uneven, sometimes held and sometimes let out in sharp bursts right before he comes. Tony never finds out if it’s his name that makes him come because Tony is too busy coming himself to notice, arching up hard against Loki and thrusting into his hand.

Loki collapses, heavy and sticky on top of him once he’s done and smiles helplessly into the place where Tony’s neck and shoulder meet and where Tony will never be able to see it.

“Still bored?” Tony asks, breathless and grinning lazily at the soft dawn light shining up onto his ceiling through the expansive of glass along one wall.

“No,” Loki murmurs, allowing himself a moment to simply enjoy this without the weight of everything that they’ve both done weighing down on them.

He stays there for long enough that Tony is almost deceived into thinking he’s going to stay this time. Then Loki's gone again, always at what feels like the worst moment although Tony isn't sure there'll ever be a moment when he’s glad for it.

There's the slick, sticky feeling of come on his stomach and he knows he needs to get up and maybe take a shower, but he can't quite motivate his body to move yet either. So instead he lies still and complains to an eternally patient JARVIS and the empty air about asshole alien gods.

+

Tony's used to the big, grand gestures of Loki's magic. What’s more interesting is the little things, the way Loki integrates bursts of magic into the way he lives and breathes and even the way he interacts with Tony. It's the tiny, affectionate things like the prickle along his spine when Loki is annoyed with him, followed by the sharp zap if Loki touches him. Sometimes, if he's been working too many days in the workshop or gone too many rounds with any one of the other Avengers in the gym, Loki will press fingers to the back of his neck and suddenly it's like he just showered for an hour. It's useful during sex for a number of reasons that together make Tony comment that he should have been fucking a god all along. Loki zaps him again in response with that feeling that's like being pinched and electrocuted at the same time. Like training a dog, Tony thinks, except if he were a dog he'd be the worst kind of untrainable dog in the world.

"You're so vulgar," Loki sighs, glint in his eyes belaying the sardonic tone.

"Funny, it seems to me you came pretty hard the last time I started muttering filth into your ear," Tony drawls with just a dash of teasing laughter and a hint of ego.

Loki shoves him weakly from where he's lying stretched out and lazy on his back, outline defined by the twisted edges of Tony's obscenely high thread-count sheets. He seems even paler when there's this much skin exposed, but there's still a rich flush in places that Tony can't help but try to taste with his tongue.

+

Days later, Loki wakes with a start from a dream that isn't his—a dream about flying through a wide open sky and about falling, about seeing the stars of another part of the universe and being _afraid._ He wants to ask Tony about it, wants to know more, always more and it's terrifying.

Loki wants everything, every last, tiny piece of him and oddly, it's that thought which makes him so careful. He doesn't know if he remembers how to be kind and he worries that if he grips too hard, he'll break something in this fragile, mortal man. But it doesn't stop him from wanting to sink his fingers in deep and never let go.

This was supposed to be a distraction, nothing more, but now he cares and that's only going to get someone hurt. Loki doesn't know which of them will carry the scars, fresh and new and hidden from the world, or if it will be both of them in the end. He doesn't care, only knows that it has to stop. He has to stop seeing Tony.

Action proves harder than thought and the next time he visits, Tony grins at him over the faintly smoking mass of wires he’s been soldering and Loki realizes with a sinking heart that he would miss Tony too much if he cut off all contact now.

+

“Can you show me where you live?” Tony asks one day and Loki thinks that although he’s never considered the possibility before, it’s very likely that he can.

“Perhaps,” he says and has Tony sit down just in case before turning their connection inside-out. It’s fortunate that no one else will be able to see Tony and that Loki murmuring to himself is nothing so surprising that it will draw more than a cursory glance in his direction.

“It’s nicer than I expected,” Tony comments, looking around at the sparsely furnished, white-floored room in which Loki is confined. He wonders at the patterns that ripple and curl inside the glass walls, curious if they’re a form of writing or even the raw form of the magic that keeps Loki confined.

“I was raised a prince, no matter what I am now,” Loki tells him, thinking of his mother and all the things she’d sent for him when no one else did.

“Still, I can see why you like getting out every now and then. Is there an end to your sentence or is it just until someone important feels like letting you out?” Tony asks innocently enough. The Asgardian law system is a mystery, but Tony gets the impression it doesn’t work quite the same way that the one he’s used to does.

“All I can do is wait,” Loki says, looking out with vague disdain at the rowdy bunch of imprisoned raiders across from him.

“Really? Sure, the chairs are nice, but solitary confinement sounds pretty lonely to me,” Tony comments.

“I am hardly alone,” Loki sighs, gesturing around at the ruffians and scum in the cells around him. Tony throws him a look that says the words he doesn’t voice: that his fellow prisoners don’t count.

“Ah, yes, you do know something about being alone. I’d forgotten,” Loki says, knowing his words have cut the way he intended when Tony winces just slightly and looks away. He doesn’t know why he’s feeling particularly vindictive today, or perhaps he knows and just doesn’t want to acknowledge that he’s in the mood to ruin something good.

“You have your team now. What did you call them? The Avengers,” he continues, voice dripping with with all the boredom and disdain he can muster. He’s seen the way that Aesir and mortals alike thrive in the company of people that they call “friends”, people on whom they can depend or with whom they can share secrets no one else knows.

“It’s cleaner than the cave I was kept in, at least. The sand got into everything all the damn time,” Tony tells him and it’s nothing, just a little detail, maybe something he’s never bothered telling someone before because it pales in comparison to the rest of that story and oh, Loki thinks. Oh.

He really is in over his head.

Tony ignores him and tries to pick up one of his many books. His hand passes right through, bringing a frown to his mouth.

“You don’t have the same control that I do,” Loki says, stepping up beside him to flip it open to a random spread for him. The text is illegible to Tony, but the large, ornate illustration is exactly what he’d expect from an ancient, vaguely Norse culture obsessed with the color gold and which apparently hasn’t bothered to invent anything remotely resembling a printing press.

“I always wondered what it would be like to be a ghost. Overall, it just seems like a pain,” Tony says with a hint of good humor.

“Now you understand how I feel,” Loki replies. Tony wraps fingers around his arm and when Loki frowns at him in confusion he smiles and doesn’t let go.

“Just testing a theory. You said it was easier to touch me than it was anything else,” he explains. Loki looks down at his hand and thinks that although Tony hasn’t even the slightest aptitude for magic, it’s really no surprise that he has the discipline to master something like this in so short a time.

“You might as well introduce me to all your friends,” Tony comments, looking around at the other cells in the hall.

“Raiders, most of them. The kind of scum you’d find anywhere in the galaxy with a few higher-grade criminals and demons mixed in,” he recounts with disinterest.

“Demons?” Tony says, incredulous and of course that would be the thing Tony latches onto.

“There are many things in the Nine Realms that you don’t understand,” Loki says and for an instant feels very old.

“I’m starting to get that picture,” Tony tells him, still looking around and absorbing every possible detail of this new space he may never have the chance to visit again.

“Asgard is more interesting above ground, as I’m sure Thor has spent countless hours informing you,” Loki sighs, flipping through the pages of the book he’d opened for Tony.

“Think Odin would be up for some house guests? I’m guessing it’s a “no” to the conjugal visits, but I could come down and wave,” Tony chats away, heedless of the way that Loki is glaring at him.

“Mortals are forbidden from entering Asgard,” Loki replies quietly. It’s possible that someday they will grudgingly allow Thor to show Jane all the wonders of his kingdom. But never would they let Tony step foot inside, much less as Loki’s guest.

“So much for that idea,” Tony says, shrugging. It’s not like he expected it to happen, but it’s still ever so slightly disappointing. Loki glances at him and then decides he has nothing to lose by weaving an illusion around the pair of them. It curves up and around in every direction until they’re standing in the middle of a sphere that tricks the eye into thinking it’s much more expansive than it is.

He shows Tony what he remembers of Asgard and the stars he described to him all that time ago, shows him the wide expanse of the throne room that Tony says is bigger than any single room he’s ever seen in his life. He shows him the Rainbow Bridge just to see Tony laugh at the name again and then switches to the library where books and scrolls are stacked all the way to the high, arching ceilings above.

It’s clear at times that these are memories, not images of the real thing, but it’s awe-inspiring all the same to see the architecture of a new, alien world that Tony couldn’t possibly have dreamed existed only a handful of years before.

There's no real rhyme or reason to the things he shows Tony, he just switches to whatever he thinks of next and enjoys the expressions the scenes bring to Tony's face. Tony doesn't seem to mind and keeps up a steady stream of commentary and questions, pausing only occasionally to marvel at something in particular.

  
Loki smiles, a small secret thing, and thinks that perhaps they should have done this earlier.

+

He lifts his head when he hears footsteps approaching his cell with purpose. Thor is the most likely candidate, but when he looks, it’s not his brother that stares back at him, but a face that’s so perfectly forgettable that it must be false.

The book in his hands snaps shut with a sharp thump as he rises to his feet to greet the stranger with whom arrives a deep sense of foreboding. Loki is capable of doing magic inside the confines of the cell, but the glass walls crawl with old, powerful spells that should stop him extending his influence any further than that. Still, Loki is at least a match for any ancient builder of Asgard and it is his mother who’s been sending him book after book on magic to read while he had nothing better to do. It’s a simple enough task to creep tendrils of energy out between the cracks to investigate the true identity of this strange guest.

“Greetings, Loki,” the man says, inclining his head with the proper respect.

“What do you want?” Loki asks, distainful and then has to hide his reaction when he recognizes just who he’s talking to. He is not the same Other that Loki had most of his dealings with before, but he is of the same order, still with too many thumbs and blood between his teeth beneath that cage of a mask. It’s simple enough to see under the illusion now that Loki knows what he’s looking for.

“To meet with you. Why else?” the Other questions, grinning when Loki narrows his eyes ever so slightly.

“You are brave to come here, into the heart of Asgard,” Loki hisses, soft and dangerous as he takes a menacing step towards the glass.

“I have not been detected. You told us many things, even if you do not remember,” the Other replies, apparently unconcerned in the face of Loki’s threatening stance. There’s a moment when Loki tries desperately to remember if he ever told the Titan’s minions about all the secret paths into Asgard and then he remembers that it is a habit of the Others to confuse and warp every mind they come in contact with. Whatever path this Other took into Asgard, it will be found and it will be closed even if Loki has to do it himself someday.

“What do you _want_ from me?” Loki repeats, more vehement than before. He curses himself for his foolishness, for his complacency when he knew that he’d revealed himself to those hunting him by saving Tony. It’s not that he didn’t consider it, but foolishly, he had trusted in all the strength of Asgard to protect him while he was here.

“I am here to release you,” the Other smiles, always an incongruous expression against the horror of his face.

“There is a catch,” Loki replies and doesn’t mean it as a question. He knows how this goes.

“No,” the Other says, gesturing in a way he maybe means to be gracious but which seems more sinister than anything else.

“Your master is not that kind,” Loki snaps, feeling the confines of his cage more strongly than usual. His urges to attack and flee are warring inside him, but neither is possible at the moment.

“You should not question such a generous gift,” The Other warns, shifting closer to him. Loki stands his ground despite every alarm going off in his head that tells him to step back and widen the distance between them again.

“I will stay here,” Loki replies. Thanos could be offering him a kingdom again and Loki could even believe him and still he wouldn’t accept. He has been burned with more than fire and will not be so foolish again.

“Among those who despise you? Who would gladly slide a sword between your ribs given half a chance?”

“Yes,” Loki says, lips curling in a sneer. “I prefer the hospitality here. Better cooking.” It occurs to him belatedly that he might be picking up a little of Tony’s favorite style of snark to mix in with his own without even realizing it.

“You are _brave_ to reject my master’s offer,” the Other says, throwing Loki’s word from before right back in his face.

“You are naive if you think I couldn’t escape from this cage on my own,” he jeers back. “I will wait until Odin decides I am useful again. But until then I am content to be forgotten and left alone.” Or at least, left alone on Asgard so that he can spend an ever-increasing amount of his time on Midgard instead.

"Very well."

Loki recoils violently when the Other reaches a swollen hand out towards him, passing through the barrier like so much water even as sparks dance gold across the deathly pale of his skin. But his reflexes aren’t enough to save him from the feeling of the Other’s hand on his cheek, clammy and chilled like dead flesh for a moment and then white-hot the next as he does something that makes Loki’s eyes roll back in his head from the pain of it.

Frankly, Loki is surprised when he comes back to his senses that he’s still on his feet. He sees the retreating back of the Other masquerading as a common servant and snarls, pounding fists against the barrier as he feels the inky black feeling of death spreading through his veins. He screams long after the Other has left and scratches at the surface of the glass, relishing the feeling of burning in his fingertips when the rest of him feels colder by the second.

+

“Tony,” Loki's voice says and Tony whips around in surprise, ready to banter and tease as he always does when Loki sneaks up on him. But when he has to drop his eyes from the level of where Loki's should be—a little above his own—to about waist level, his smile falls right off his face.

He turns just as Loki finishes collapsing to his knees on the workshop floor, looking utterly wrecked. Tony stumbles towards him without thinking, closing the distance between them in a rush and dropping to a crouch to bring them level again.

“What the hell happened?” Tony demands, eyes roving over him looking for an injury or any clue.

Loki gives him a pained smile, horrible black liquid dripping from between his lips to run oily and slick like gasoline down his chin, dribbling onto the pale line of his throat, his shirt and the floor.

“Powerful enemies,” is the absolutely useless answer Loki chooses to give him. Tony’s stony expression speaks volumes about just how funny he thinks Loki is right this moment, which is to say: not at all. So Loki sighs and allows his false smile to drop and be replaced by a grimace.

“I've been poisoned,” he admits in a strained voice.

“Is that what all this is?” Tony asks, hand shifting and then pulling away again. Probably he wants to wipe Loki's lips clean, but doesn't know if he'll be able to touch him or even if he should.

“No. This is my body fighting back,” Loki says. “I've cast a great deal of protective magic on myself in the past. Seems my paranoia was worth something after all.” He tries to laugh, but the sound that escapes him is a terrible, broken thing.

“Is it winning?” Tony asks, eyebrows pulled together as he frowns. He keeps making these little aborted movements like he doesn't have the first idea how to handle this, but hates to just sit there and do nothing at all. Loki doesn't reply, so he tries again.

“Will you be okay?” Tony asks desperately, hoping that if he repeats it enough times, he'll get an answer. Loki doesn't say anything for a long time, just alternates between breathing raggedly and retching up more of the black liquid that makes Tony feel more and more helpless with every drop.

Eventually he says “yes,” in barely more than a hoarse whisper. “I think so.” But even then Tony isn't sure he can trust it. Loki is the God of Lies and just because Loki has told him a shocking number of truths in the time they’ve known each other, it doesn’t mean he’ll follow the trend now. Tony would’t be surprised if he chose now to try to be noble about things.

Loki spasms again, gasping in agony and makes an awful choking sound that would have been a scream if he'd let it escape. Tony whips his phone out without a thought and dials Thor's number, hoping against hope that Thor has his phone today of all days. He forgets it as often as not, or fries it with electricity when he's not paying attention. Tony will try Coulson if it doesn't work, but every redirect to voicemail wastes time and Loki is thousands if not millions of miles away in another dimension. There's no telling how long it will take Thor to arrive as it is.

“You only have to worry if I stop retching up this horrendous stuff,” Loki tells him, curled partially in on himself, weak and miserable. Finally, Tony touches him, curling his hand around the back of Loki's mercifully solid neck, under his hair that's longer than ever and curlier than Tony ever would have expected, to feel the fever-heat of him. Tony strokes his thumb over the skin there slowly and hopes.

“If I do, it means it stopped working,” Loki continues without prompting and Tony doesn't have to ask to know he means his own magic, not whatever poison is trying to eat away at his insides.

“You're wasting energy being here,” Tony says as he realizes. He’s wasting precious magic that he should be using to save himself instead.

“Better to die here than in a cage,” Loki murmurs. Tony's fingers tighten for a moment as a spring of fresh fear wells up in his chest at the statement. Loki thinks there's a chance he'll die after all.

Thor's phone goes straight to voicemail three times, even after Tony directs JARVIS to override anything he needs to override to get Thor to answer it. He calls Coulson, who picks up with a professional greeting and barely manages to extract meaning out of Tony's increasingly fast chatter. No, he admits, he doesn't know where Thor is as the moment because Thor likes to fly around more than Tony’s jet and never tells anyone where he's going. But his best guess is New Mexico because Jane is there and Thor is utterly predictable where Jane is concerned.

Tony's never had Jane's number, but it's impossibly easy to look up. There's dead silence on the end of the line when he spits out who he is and then a rustling, a distant call of Thor's name and thirty seconds later Tony could almost cry from relief when hears Thor's voice, curious, speaking his name on the other end of the line.

“Your brother—he needs help,” Tony tells him, willing himself to slow down. Loki is shaking under his hand now, gone silent save for the miserable sounds he can't help but let escape between his clenched teeth every now and then.

“Loki?” Thor asks in consternation. “What do you mean?”

“I don't have time to explain. I really don't. You need to go to him right now. _Please_.” Tony could probably count on one hand the number of times in his life that he's honestly begged for something, but he's doing it now.

Thor has a big heart and loves his brother too much. He barely knows Tony at all, but somehow, miraculously, he trusts him and agrees to leave immediately for Asgard. Tony hangs up without saying goodbye properly and turns every ounce of his attention back on Loki who looks paler than ever, but manages to meet his eyes in return.

He can't tell if Loki is furious or glad that Tony sent his brother after him, but it very well might be a little of both.

In a moment of bizarre, hilarious clarity, Tony wonders what would happen if Thor got all the way to where Loki is being held and nothing was wrong. Tony would be well and truly screwed, he supposes. Bruce knows already and so does Natasha, but if the whole team found out, god forbid, if Fury or Coulson or any member of SHIELD found out that he’d been played like a fiddle by Loki over a period of months, he'd be forced to go into hiding just by the shame alone.

“I can't stay any longer,” Loki whispers and maybe Tony imagines it, but it seems for a moment like he leans more fully into Tony’s touch and then he's gone. The workshop floor that DUM-E swept only an hour ago is spotless, not a drop of black, slimy oil to be seen from where Tony is crouched awkwardly in the middle of it all.

He throws something delicate just to see it break. It doesn’t make him feel better and watching DUM-E and U scurry over with broom and dustpan in their claws to clean up the mess makes him feel even worse somehow.

+

Thor strides down the hallways towards Loki’s cell dressed in nothing more than a plaid shirt and jeans, incongruous against all the finery that Asgard has to offer, even in these deep levels. He pushes by startled guards and snaps at anyone who stands in his way. The only thing that gives him a moment’s pause is the sight of Loki laid out, unmoving, on the floor of his cell. Then Thor shifts back into motion, ordering the guards to open the door for him.

They hesitate, but the determination is plain to see on Thor’s face and there are few in Asgard brave enough to question their prince when he is like this. Thor catches the last few moments of Loki’s consciousness in which Loki manages to whisper something spiteful at him and then his body goes limp and his eyes slide closed. It’s for the best that he’s unable to resist Thor when he hefts Loki into his arms and stands, striding out again to the bewilderment of everyone watching.

Thor takes him to the palace healers because he doesn’t know what else to do. They stare for longer than necessary at the sight that the brothers make together and then there’s a flurry of movement and Loki is taken from him by two terrified young Aesir, one male and one female. It’s clear that they think Loki will wake and attack them all indiscriminately, but they're bolstered ever so slightly by the fact that Thor is there to restrain him if it comes to it.

Thor stands over the bed they put Loki in and waits with his arms crossed over his chest. He watches as magic and medicine do their work, and wonders about the circumstances that brought him here.

It doesn’t take long for Frigga to arrive in a rush of skirts. She looks first to Loki and then to Thor and turns to direct the scattering of people still in the room. Thor forgets sometimes that his mother is a veritable force of nature when she has reason to be and is fiercely glad in a way he never realized before that he is not the only person left who hasn’t given up on Loki entirely.

Hours later, someone has brought them chairs and they have settled in on either side of the bed for the kind of long, silent vigil that Thor has always hated and Frigga is all too familiar with. The way she looks at her son is not the same as the way she looks at her husband under the glowing dome of magic and Thor thinks that the difference might be that now her face is filled with sorrow.

“The rumors say that he did it to himself,” she tells Thor quietly. She has always had an unparalleled skill for simply knowing things, even when they happen far away and Thor has long since stopped questioning how. It doesn’t seem like she believes it any more than he does, but the words hang in the space between them as they sit, silent and wondering if Loki will make it through the night.

“I do not see why he would,” Thor replies after some time.

“To escape his cell, perhaps, or just for attention,” she sighs, hands sliding idly over Loki’s blankets to smooth and arrange them though she’s done it a dozen times already.

“Perhaps. But... it doesn't sound right,” he says, looking down at his sleeping brother. He looks thin, but then, he’s always been slim under all the layers of his armor and sleep erases some of the hard lines of his face.

“No, I don’t think so either,” she agrees. Thor has been injured by Loki many times and feels the pain of each wound as deeply now as when is was made, but it does not diminish the love he has for the brother who has been beside him almost all his life.

He feels worse for their mother because she has had no choice but to sit in the background and watch their tragedy unfold. She knew all along what Loki was and loved him no less for it, loves him no less now even though she abhors the paths he has chosen to take.

“We will not know until he wakes,” Thor says, hoping to put an end to needless worry and speculation. He rests a hand atop hers and squeezes gently. She smiles at him and thinks briefly of how much he has grown since he was a little boy that could fit both his hands in one of hers.

“How did you know?” she asks and Thor frowns because he doesn’t want to have to explain something that he doesn’t understand himself. He hasn’t even had the opportunity to draw details out of Loki about how and why. But he will not lie to his mother.

“Tony Stark told me. He called Jane and begged me to find Loki as quickly as I could—I have never heard his voice sound like that before,” Thor admits quietly.

“So the question is not how you knew, but how he did,” Frigga says with of her small, clever smiles.

“There have been no reports of Loki leaving his room,” Thor says with a nod. He doesn’t want to say ‘cage’ even if that’s exactly what it is. It makes Loki sound like a wild animal that needs to be trapped.

“The question may not be whether there have been strange reports about Loki, but whether there have been any about your friend,” Frigga suggests. Thor feels strange for not having considered that option, but Loki has always been the trickster and it is to him they’ve always looked first when something unusual happened. Thor has to admit that he knows Tony as a warrior and a hero, knows his weaknesses and how to fight beside him, but that he knows very little about Tony as a man.

“I have heard nothing, but that means very little,” he says after consideration. What if Tony had found a way to contact Loki, he thinks. Would that make him a traitor, or simply too curious for his own good?

“As you said, there are many things to ask Loki when he wakes,” she says, turning her attention back to Loki. Thor stays and watches throughout the night. His mother leaves some time in the small hours of the dawn when she decides that Loki is no longer in danger of dying beneath her hands. Thor thinks he sees her murmur something that might be magic into Loki’s ear before she goes, but he never knows what it’s meant to do.

+

The next morning, Odin summons him and Thor can not refuse no matter how much he wishes he could. He goes, in his own armor this time and not the Midgardian clothing he wears sometimes when he’s with Jane, and finds his father on a terrace looking out over the city in the morning light.

“Father,” he says, and receives a nod of acknowledgment.

“He is well?” Odin asks, beginning to walk with Thor by his side.

“They say he will be, but that it was a close thing. Had I arrived any later we might not have been so fortunate,” Thor explains, following Odin’s gaze out across the city to the edge of the world.

“You believe it was luck?” Odin asks cryptically and fails to expound on his question when Thor glances at him in confusion.

“It does not matter as long as he survives,” Thor replies after a brief pause.

"Heimdall did not see what happened," Odin says calmly, as though commenting on the weather instead of something that has only rarely happened in all the history of Asgard.

"I will ask him when he wakes," Thor says, concern evident on his face as he considers what it means that Heimdall's sight was blocked.

“You cannot continue to wait by his bedside day in and day out while our forces are marching,” Odin chides him and despite the lack of eye, he manages to radiate disapproval in every line of his face. Thor has heard news of this and knows he would have been compelled to return to Asgard soon even if Tony had not demanded it of him when he did.

“He will wake soon,” Thor argues. There is no evidence for his claim and they both know, but Thor wishes to be there when Loki does. There has been no real fighting yet in any case, only small skirmishes that do not require his presence to be won.

“You are their prince. You must be seen fighting even if they do not need you for victory,” Odin tells him, not quite sharp but with an edge to his voice. There was a time when his tone alone would have cowed Thor into compliance, but now Thor is older and has started to make decisions for himself. It is something that Loki helped teach him, even if it was an accident that he did so.

“One more day is all I ask,” Thor begs. He can’t deny an order from the king, not outright, so this will have to be enough. Odin dislikes the idea, but knows it may be the closest they will come to an accord on this subject, so he agrees.

“You will leave tomorrow afternoon,” he instructs in a tone that brooks no argument and turns away to continue his walk through the open halls and courtyards of Asgard. Thor doesn’t follow and turns instead to return to Loki’s side in case he wakes.

+

“You are a fool,” Loki croaks at him from the bed, but it’s half hearted at best. Thor’s head snaps up from his half-doze, aching neck making its displeasure known as he does so. He’s been here for almost a full day since he spoke wth his father and never made it back to his own bed the night before.

“Loki,” he says and grins too wide and too bright. Loki covers his eyes with his hand to avoid it.

“Leave me alone, you oaf,” he mumbles and it’s almost affectionate.

“How do you feel?”

“Like I’ve been abused by you in training practice for a week straight,” Loki groans. He feels the uncomfortable prickle of healing magic still running through his veins, repairing the damage that very nearly killed him.

“But you are alive,” Thor points out, still sounding far too happy about the entire affair, damn him.

“Unfortunately,” Loki says, just so he doesn’t have to agree.

“I have questions,” Thor tells him, already leaning forward.

“Of course you do. At least fetch me a glass of water and something to eat before the interrogation,” Loki demands, if only to delay the questions a little longer. Thor does and Loki thinks viciously that’s he’s double the fool because he leaves Loki utterly alone in the room with no guard to watch him. He could have escaped and come back a dozen times over by the time Thor returns.

The food and wine he brings with him is all too rich compared to what Loki has gotten used to down in his cell. He was fed better than most, still the queen’s son, but it never compared to this.

He sits up against the pillows, plate in his lap, and wonders how long he has to enjoy this brief stint of freedom before he’s sent back.

“You wish to know how Tony knew, who poisoned me and why,” Loki states evenly, watching Thor as he returns to his seat by the bedside. Thor nods and fails to add anything more to the list.

“The poisoner was a minion of Thanos. I don’t know what poison it was, but it was a powerful one,” he says before eagerly draining half the cup in one go. He’d first tried to tell Thor about Thanos just a little after his defeat in New York. But Thor hadn’t listened and Loki hadn’t been given the chance to speak for himself again after that. It was only the most recent time Thor came to visit him a little over three weeks before that Loki had told him tiny fraction of the tale he’d told Tony. He’s glad that he did, if only to save himself the trouble of doing so now while he still feels raw and nauseated.

When he glances at Thor, he recognizes the unhappy lines around his mouth.

“I wish I could tell you that your attacker will not be allowed to escape Asgard,” Thor says, voice rich with regret because they both know that it’s already too late for that. “But I am more curious about Stark.”

“Tony knew because I have been visiting him for a long time now. I went to him almost immediately after I was poisoned,” he says, surprising even himself when he decides to simply tell Thor the truth. He smiles unexpectedly at the dumbstruck expression on Thor’s face and laughs when Thor struggles to think of a reply and only comes up with a single word: “Explain.”

“There’s a link between us that makes it easy—an accident that happened in New York,” Loki explains. “I’m able to project a copy of myself into his mind and his world at will.”

“He’s enormously entertaining,” Loki adds as an afterthought, still gleeful about catching Thor so utterly unaware.

“He has not said a word of this to me,” Thor says as he processes the implications of Loki’s story.

“Why would he? I’m your enemy,” Loki says with a smirk. He doesn’t mention that he’s glad Tony didn’t because it might have meant an end to their interactions and the loss of everything that had come after. It strikes him then that the last time they’d seen each other might have been the last time ever and it doesn’t feel like the kind of fitting end he would have hoped for. Loki sighs, unable to really ignore the wave of loss he feels at the thought.

“You are my brother,” Thor counters quickly, as though correcting his grammar.

“I don’t think he fully believed it was me until recently,” Loki tells him instead of arguing, consuming his food with a hunger he hadn’t been aware of until now.

“What changed?” Thor asks. He’s pushing his luck with getting straight answers out of Loki, but he intends to make the most of it before he’s shut out of Loki’s thoughts again.

“He was almost killed,” Loki says simply, licking sauce from his fingers and failing to look up.

“I remember that. You were involved?” Thor says in surprise, thinking back on what he knows of the incident. Generally, he pays only the barest amount of attention to Midgardian news and trusts that he’ll be told if any particular events warrant his attention. He’d been visiting Jane at the time and remembers Darcy chattering away at Tony’s face on the TV screen, something about how she didn’t believe a word of whatever he was saying.

“I was the one who killed that man, whatever you may have heard,” Loki replies calmly. He never bothered to ask and Tony didn’t seem to think it was important enough to tell him, but he can guess that the mortals have spun some tale or other to cover up the strange circumstance of Loki appearing in the bedroom of one of the Avengers and saving his life.

Thor contemplates this for a short while, reaching to steal a thick slice of bread from Loki’s plate as he does. Loki stabs him viciously, just hard enough to draw a trickle of blood, and Thor laughs loudly at him. The sound grates horribly, but without Loki’s permission, it also ignites a little flare of nostalgia in his chest. It’s been a long time since Thor laughed at him like that, not even a little mocking and all fond.

“So you have befriended Tony?” Thor asks once his mirth has subsided.

“That is a way of describing it,” Loki mutters evasively. He has no desire to tell Thor just what he and Tony have been spending so much time doing lately.

“It is a strange thing to hear. I have never known either of you to make friends easily,” Thor comments innocently, neglecting to pry further into Loki’s vague response.

"He treats me as an equal,” Loki murmurs, thinking for what must be the thousandth time just how easy it is to be angry with Thor lately, even for minor transgressions.

"I have always believed you my equal,” Thor says, face falling as he recognizes the sound of Loki’s bitterness rising to the surface.

"I know. It is perhaps the only reason I have even a shred of care left for you,” Loki says flatly, holding Thor’s gaze to hide the uncertainly he feels in admitting this.

"Then why?"

"When we were young, you told me often that you planned to slay the frost giants when you became king. You told me stories of how terrible they were no matter how often mother shushed you. How do you suppose I felt when I found out I was one of them?" Loki asks and finds it’s not as amusing as he always thought it would be to watch the way Thor breaks a little at his words. He laughs cruelly anyway and hates the way it sounds when it comes out of his mouth.

"And even without that lie, no person on Asgard ever believed or treated me as your equal. I was a shadow only, trained in magic and combat by my mother. A weak prince and a trickster without merit," he continues with rising passion.

"When we were young, father told us we were both kings in the making,” Thor says quietly.

"Then he was a liar and a fool. Did it ever seem for even a _moment_ like I might rise to the throne instead of you?" Loki demands, fingers twisting white into his blankets.

Thor is silent in unhappy, tacit agreement.

"I was never considered your equal, Thor, and I wanted nothing more in all the nine realms but to prove that I was. Little did I know that father meant to use me as a tool to gain power over Jotunheim," Loki snarls, laughing, dark and terrible at the way that causes Thor to flinch guiltily.

"Perhaps I would have been a king after all, sat upon a throne of blood and ice."

“Stop,” Thor says simply, commanding, and it brings Loki up short for just long enough for him to get a word in edgewise.

"I have said things to hurt you, though I did not know it at the time, and I _am_ sorry, brother. I wish that you had told me how much you were suffering before everything fell to ruin.”

“I tried,” Loki says, and they both know it for a lie. He did, but too little and too late and always when he knew Thor was least likely to listen. Thor as Loki used to know him was more stubborn, less kind, but he still might have listened if Loki had really tried his hardest to explain. Instead he’d shouted and demanded a fight when Thor didn’t want one and then held the fight that followed against him.

“I’m sorry,” Thor repeats again more earnestly than ever.

"I don't doubt it,” Loki sighs.

"So why do you still try to drive me away?" Thor inquires and Loki finds that there’s no answer he could possibly give that Thor would understand. So he holds out his empty plate and lets Thor go to fetch him more food instead.

When he returns, Loki continues to eat and Thor sits with him in silence for longer than Loki would have thought possible.

“Father wants me to leave this afternoon,” Thor breaks the silence with a sigh that makes it clear what he thinks about the idea.

“I’m sure I’ll manage without you. I almost miss my cage already,” Loki replies, indifferent.

“I can’t let you just go back down there! What if this happens again?” Thor replies heatedly.

“Perhaps next time my assassin will be successful,” he says, examining his empty cup with fake interest.

“No!” Thor exclaims.

“Brother, please. You heard Odin’s sentence as clearly as I did. There is no end date for my imprisonment.”

“I will bring you with me. It is not unheard of for prisoners to earn back their freedom in war,” Thor says, ever hopeful even in the face of all that Loki has done.

“Do you honestly want me beside you in battle? I could just as easily turn on you and run away after,” Loki grits out. He knows it’s what all of Asgard would expect if he were to go. He’s even half tempted to do it just to get a little control back, to laugh at the chaos he would cause.

“I don’t believe you will.”

“You’re an idiot.”

“You’re impossible.”

“Do you honestly believe Odin will allow this?” Loki snaps impatiently. Trust Thor to have noble ideas now of all times.

“You can not know until you ask—” Thor starts.

“I will not ask,” Loki cuts him off.

“Then I will!” Thor shouts, stunning them both into silence for a heartbeat.

“He won’t agree,” Loki mutters bitterly, turning his face away.

+

Loki doesn't come back and neither does Thor. Frustrated, Tony complains to JARVIS, DUM-E and U in turns that it wouldn't be that hard for either of them to send him a message, anything really, just to tell him what happened. It's the not knowing that drives him up the wall and makes it so that he can't focus on any one project for more than an hour or two at a time.

They're gone for days, then weeks and all the while Tony is working and doing the hero gig, getting closer to all these new people by degrees until he might almost call them his friends. They never really get to enjoy their periods of peace because there's always some new trouble lurking just around the corner. He's busy and maybe even happy, but there's always some back corner of his mind wondering what happened, why Thor hasn't come back and why he hasn't seen Loki again.

Tony fixed Pepper months before all this Loki business even started, only a few days after she'd been given the Extremis virus. Seventy-two hours without sleep had been plenty; he'd almost had the solution when he was drunk in 1999, after all. So it had only taken him twenty-four of those hours to work it out, and another forty-eight to make sure the cure was perfect.

She'd gone back to normal, back to running his business for him and really, it's almost her business by now even if it's his name on the building. It will be on paper too if he ever dies. But ever since what he likes to think of as the worst Christmas ever, the long, thin strands of the Extremis virus have been dancing in his brain, not literally but figuratively, teasing him with thoughts of what could be and what might be if he bent them to his will. He could make himself into anything he wanted: a soldier, a god, a superhero with powers beyond imagining, but he doesn't.

He makes a different choice and when he tells Pepper, he swears her heart stops for half a second. Then she's crying and smiling at him and he has no idea what to do with that, never has, so he wraps her up in his arms and holds on until she stops. It doesn't take long because Pepper hates crying almost as much as she secretly hates cheap champagne and martinis without any olives. She presses so hard on the arc reactor with her hands that it hurts, but he doesn't say a word and just lets her do it.

"Are you going to get me a glass box for this one too?" he says and chuckles when she says she wants to keep it on her desk forever to remind everyone who comes in just who it is she works for.

He doesn't tell anyone else why he's going to China, but Rhodey is there anyway. waiting on the stairs of Tony’s jet when he and Pepper arrive at the runway. He cracks some jokes and pretends to try to get Rhodey to stay behind, but really he's glad for the company.

Strangely, the next and last time he sees Loki is just after he's had a respirator fitted to his face on the operating table. Loki appears in the strange, dream-like world half way between waking and unconsciousness that Tony slips through as the drugs filter into his system. He looks tired and he's dressed in his old leather, covered in green, black and gold. But it's slimmer somehow; it makes Loki look as thin as he really is. Tony wonders what it means.

He meets Loki's eyes because there's no way he could talk, even without the equipment over his nose and mouth.

“Goodbye, Tony,” Loki tells him, inclining his head. He gets the impression that there's more Loki wishes he could say, but he doesn't and then Tony's vision is going dark like the static noise on a television screen fizzling slowly away into blackness.

The arc reactor is removed and with it goes Loki. He doesn't visit again, in dreams or in waking, for so long that Tony almost starts to believe he was never real after all.

+

“I will allow you to take Loki with you,” Odin says, holding up a hand to silence the words of thanks ready to fall from Thor’s lips, “on one condition.”

Thor’s brows draw together in consternation, but he waits patiently for Odin to continue.

“He must stay by your side. If he runs or if he betrays you or Asgard again, he will be exiled and killed on sight if he dares return,” he instructs, observing the unhappy frown that creeps onto Thor’s mouth with his single eye.

It’s not true that Odin never loved Loki as his own son, no matter what the reason was that he chose to steal a Jotunn child from his craddle of ice and snow all those millennia ago. But Odin is as much as king as he is a father and neither position renders him incapable of making mistakes. As a father, he wishes to give Loki the chance to redeem himself, but as a king, he cannot allow these slights to continue, cannot be seen to show so much favoritism, even to one of his own family.

“I understand,” Thor says, tone hard and flat. It hurts to hear his own father speak of having Loki killed, but he knows there is nothing he can do to change this, no argument he could possibly make. There are those who say Thor is soft because of how easily he forgives his brother time after time. But it's not softness, it’s hope and Thor can afford to believe in something like that when Odin can’t.

“You will go to Vanaheim. Heimdall knows where to send you.”

“Thank you, father. I will see to it that he causes no mischief,” Thor says, stepping back as if to leave.

Odin’s lips quirk in a wry smile, only rarely seen.

“I will be watching. Perhaps if I’d kept both my eyes, I would have been able to keep an eye on both my sons from the start.”

Thor bids his father a hasty farewell and makes his way towards Loki’s room with long, quick strides. He wishes to deliver the news as quickly as possible because they only have a few hours to prepare now, but Odin’s parting comment does not escape his notice entirely.

Thor remembers being a boy and looking at his small hand, only just beginning to be calloused from sword and spear in his father’s larger one and thinking that his father must know everything of the world. Even when Loki began to slip between his fingers, even when he was screaming in pain and betrayal, Thor still clung to that desperate belief that his father could do no wrong.

There are many things that Thor has lost in his warrior’s dance with his brother, but he wonders if one of them was not that innocence, that unfaltering belief in the man who raised him. He wonders also if it is not such a bad thing to have lost, no matter how painful it was to do so.

He pushes open the door to Loki’s chambers to find him sitting cross-legged on the bed, books and papers spread out before him. He looks well, healthy except for the tired lines around his eyes, but Thor has seen him at his very worst so the Loki that sits before him is a sight for sore eyes.

“When am I to return to my cell?” Loki asks without looking up. Thor only smiles.

“You’d best get dressed, brother. We leave in two hours.” Loki’s expression, caught off-guard and filled with surprise is worth the heavy tome Loki throws at his head when he laughs.

+

Frigga waits for them at the entrance to the Rainbow Bridge, resplendent in gold silk and satin. She says her farewells to Thor first while Loki stands aside, eyes cast down and hands clasped behind his back in quiet uncertainty. He knows his mother has never once forsaken him, but to bring him books on magic in private and to give him her blessing before all the gathered men and women of Asgard are two very different things.

Thor stands back, beaming and filled to the brim with energy as he always is when the possibility of battle looms on the horizon. Their mother smiles at him and then turns her attention on Loki. He meets her eyes, questioning, and steps forward when she inclines her head the barest fraction.

“I have a gift for you before you go,” she tells him calmly, stretching her hands out at elbow height, palms faced up. For a moment he doesn't understand and then there's a great golden spear resting in her grasp and he can't stop his eyes widening in surprise.

Her summoning magic is seamless, more beautiful than his own, but that isn't what surprises him. He knows this weapon from nights spent curled up by her side before the fire as a boy, listening to the lovely cadence of her voice while she spun him tales of her childhood. She’d named this weapon Hervor, a name she claimed gave it power from all the shield-maidens and Valkyrie who had come before it, and like the women of legend, Frigga had been both admired for her beauty and feared for her power before she took Odin as her husband.

“I didn't know you still had this,” he says quietly, reaching out hesitant fingers to take it from her.

“It was never stored in the weapons vaults of Asgard,” she replies, telling him what he already knows because he's had every square inch of Asgard memorized from top to bottom ever since he was a child.

“Thank you,” he says, the words weighing strangely on his tongue. He hefts the spear in his hands, feeling the perfect weight and the balance of it as the tip arcs through the air. It's as beautiful a weapon as he's ever seen, forged like Mjolnir from Uru and coated in gold and magic.

“You have no weapon of your own and I will not send either of my sons into battle that way,” she says simply and he sees the meaning between every word. He could summon a weapon easily and is more than sufficiently talented with his throwing knives and fighting magic. But this spear, unlike all the ones he has carried in recent memory, feels right in his hands, free from the weight of expectation.

Loki doesn't say he isn't worthy of her gift because of all the people gathered here to see them off, only Thor and Frigga are not already thinking it. So instead he surges forward to embrace her, feeling like a child again even though he's so much taller than she is now that he has to bend down instead of up. He holds on tight and for the first time hopes that someday he will be allowed to return to Asgard, if only to see her again.

Eventually, he and Thor mount their horses and ride for the Bifrost. The race is Thor's fault, the idiot, but the victory belongs to Loki.

+

Loki has been hidden away from the world all this time, but he has not been blind to it. He knows that the realms have started slipping into chaos ever since Thor cut off Asgard by destroying the Bifrost. It has been rebuilt already—they could never stand to lose that much power for long—and the Aesir are fighting to maintain the dominance they like to call peace. But the waves have already begun to rise, all the scum and ruffians of the realms of Yggdrasil and beyond jumping at the opportunity to gain something for themselves.

Loki remembers a thousand whispers in the skittering dark and tries to remember now more than ever which were truths and which were lies with the hope that some small thing he heard might help them now, but nothing comes to him.

The battlefield in Vanaheim is shrouded in darkness and nearly silent when they arrive. It’s no surprise that only a small party of light-bearers and the Lady Sif are there to meet them. Her expression tightens when she sees Loki, ever cautious and ever certain he’s up to no good. She’s right to be concerned, but for once, Loki isn’t here to cause trouble.

He falls into step beside Thor and Sif easily, but makes no effort to add to the conversation that springs up between them about the war. This is not the first time Asgard’s army has marched in Loki’s lifetime, but it is the first encampment to be shrouded in so much somberness. They are not outmatched or outnumbered and the count of their dead is still low, but there is a feeling of helplessness that comes from never knowing where an enemy will strike next or what it will look like when it does.

“There’s no center to it,” Sif complains to Thor, clearly frustrated. “Our armies are stretched thin all across the realms. It rarely takes more than that to keep the peace, but it’s a long and arduous process.”

“We should not complain when we are winning,” Thor reminds her with a wry smile. No, Loki thinks, he shouldn’t be so proud of his people yet. They’re winning against nothing, the weakest forces the universe has to offer. It is the strength of the armies that Thanos will send after he’s let bandits and raiders have their fun that the forces of Asgard should fear.

“What of Midgard?” Thor asks, shameless in his bias. Loki continues to remain silent, but listens more attentively than before.

“What of it? Nothing has happened there,” Sif says with a shrug. Over her head, Thor shares a concerned glance with Loki.

“There are no forces there?”

“There aren’t any to spare,” she tells him. She knows Thor would feel better if Midgard was being protected like all the rest, but making a single man feel better, even their prince, has never been a reason to send good warriors to a place where they are not needed.

“It will not be long before there is a strike against Earth,” Loki says, finally breaking the silence. He is looking more at Thor than at her, a question and a warning both. She’s not certain, but it almost seems like Loki cares.

“It seems likely,” Thor replies with a heavy heart. “But if there are no armies to spare…”

“We will have to go ourselves when the time comes,” Loki finishes for him. That Thor will go, Sif doesn’t doubt, but Loki’s motivations in this are harder to decipher. He shouldn't care about Midgard unless it's for revenge, but Thor's shared look with him is full of an understanding that suggests something else.

When they reach the pavillion in the middle of camp, she pulls Thor aside for a moment as Loki walks a step ahead.

“I would speak with you alone,” she says in hushed tones.

“Don’t worry, Lady Sif. I know already that you don’t trust me. Say what you wish,” Loki smirks as he sprawls into an empty seat. There’s a edge of exhaustion to him that she guesses is left over from the poison. That rumor has already spread all the way out here from Asgard even though she knows most of the mutters she hears in the camp are lies. Loki is unpredictable, yes, and cunning too, but not as deranged at some of the tales would have her believe.

Thor nods his agreement, giving her a look that urges her to continue. Sif's mouth turns down unhappily, but she does as Thor bids.

“I don’t understand why you brought him,” she says, giving Thor an accusatory look that he’s seen before many a time.

“He is here to help us,” Thor replies, hoping he'll be able to adequately assuage her concerns.

“You have no proof of that!” she argues, voice rising. The last thing they need is another fight between these two to distract the soldiers and tear up whatever ground they stand on.

“And he is wrong in any case,” Loki murmurs, drawing all eyes in the room to him. “I am here because our goals overlap for now, nothing more.” He knows Sif from centuries of being in the same room with her, sometimes even the same tent, even if they weren’t necessarily friends, and knows that she’ll never trust him if he’s suddenly well behaved. But there's a chance, however slim, that she might if it seems like he's just being honest about his selfish aims.

Thor looks unhappy at the admission, but Loki can tell he questions how much of what Loki says it the truth. He’s not sure if he’s proud that Thor has finally begun to scratch the surface of understanding him, or if it will prove to be more of an inconvenience than anything else that Thor is getting harder to lie to.

She acknowledges his response with a displeased expression to match Thor’s, looking at him too long with suspicion written plain on her face before turning back to Thor to discuss the map stretched out on the table in the center of the room. Loki keeps his silence, replying only when Thor asks something of him specifically, and listens to the steady murmur of their voices over the background sound of the encampment as it begins to wake.

He muses that Sif’s question is a valid one. He doesn’t completely know what he’s doing here either, had simply jumped, impetuous and swept up in the tidal wave of Thor’s enthusiasm when he’d been offered the chance. It’s a blessing to escape from the boring confines of his cell and to see and speak to people other than this brother and Tony, but he’s more vulnerable out here in so many ways.

Their path very likely leads to Midgard in the end, and he’d be lying to himself if he claimed that thought isn’t one of the most powerful ones that drive him onward. But he could go there now if he chose, abandon everything else, escape from Thor’s grasp and never return.

Midgard will come soon, of that he is certain. But for now there is a force that keeps him here by Thor’s side and althought he doesn't quite understand the urge, he chooses to stay and fight.

+

It’s a huge, sleek mass of a ship, slightly oblong and with no discernable top or bottom. It had moved into the space over New York like a scene from Independence Day roughly eight and a half hours earlier and for most of that time it hasn’t done anything except sit there while everyone from SHIELD to the Department of Defense tried to get in contact with it.

Tony has been cracking a lot of jokes that make Clint snicker about famous alien invasion movies. Every now and then Steve will perk up and interject that he recognizes something from the hours upon hours he’s been spending in his room trying to catch up on decades of missed culture. Bruce, more of an expert on the old black and white flicks than Tony is, chats with them while they wait, suited up and ready for whatever may come.

But he goes quiet shortly after several dozen smaller ships separate from the large one like amorphous blobs of mercury and start spiraling lazily downward. The blob-like ships stick to the first thing they touch, mostly the roofs and sides of buildings. They ripple with iridescent colors like spilled gasoline for a little while and then all at the same moment, they burst like so many massive soap bubbles.

From inside spills an army of creatures that look like someone crossed a loaf of bread with rice pudding and then tried to sculpt it into something vaguely resembling a dog on two legs. Or at least, that’s what Steve says and Tony really hopes that description makes it into an official report somewhere, preferably one Fury has to read.

They’re all moving into action, defensive strategies long since memorized. There are less civilians than there could be, what with the time they had to leave the city, but still far more than any of the team would like. Tony grabs Clint by the back of his vest and carries him to a building of his choosing somewhere in Midtown.

Tony lands next to Clint on the rooftop of the building, gravel crunching under the heavy soles of his boots and looks up at the herald of their impending destruction.

“Do you ever think maybe we were just lucky last time?” he sighs.

“Every fucking day,” Clint replies with a snort and a grim smile.

+

It almost seems like it’s going to be okay, like they're going to win, but then there’s another wave of enemies and another after that—waves without end that pour from the skies.

“We need to take down the big one,” Steve tells them over the comms, giving words to what they're all thinking already.

Tony expects it to have shielding, to have an assortment of futuristic technology that stops them even getting close. What he doesn’t expect is the call that comes in from Fury to tell him that every vehicle in a hundred mile radius has essentially been rendered useless, heaps of scrap on wheels and wings.

“We can’t get anything in there, Stark. Not even close. Anything that tries to fly in drops right out of the sky and vehicles just stop in the middle of the road,” Fury tells him, mouth set in a furious line.

“What is it? EMP?” Tony asks, using one creature to knock another three over when he blasts it back.

“It has to do with the fuel. Everything from diesel to nuclear. We might be able to send in a few agents on bicycles for you,” Fury deadpans, arms crossed over his chest.

“Agents on bikes,” Tony says with a roll of his eyes, “just what we need. So why am I still running?”

“My guess is that your arc reactor tech isn’t public knowledge. The best theory we have right now is that the mothership spent those first few hours scanning our networks to figure out the best way to cripple us.”

“The people who think it should be a crime to steal WiFi must be having a field day,” Tony jokes, eyes flicking through all the information that JARVIS presents to him without being asked.

“You and a few million pigeons are the only things in the sky right now,” Fury says and yes, Tony gets the picture here. Of all the times for Thor to be missing from planet Earth, it just had to be now.

“Thanks,” Steve says curtly when Tony stops replying, too busy following the threads of ideas and solutions to this new conundrum.

“Good luck,” Fury replies, disconnecting the call.

“They knew just how to screw us over,” Natasha says darkly.

The dead zone extends the same distance up as it does sideways, Tony is disappointed to see. They won’t be able to drop anything down from above. Given enough time and the right calculations, a glider might make the trip in from the outside, but to what end? Every second wasted is another second for the ship to drop more of its army into the streets of New York and they need to do something soon.

“I have to get up there,” Tony says, broadcasting to the whole team.

“Do you think you can take it out by yourself?” Steve replies almost immediately.

“Honestly, I have no idea. But even if I do, imagine that thing crashing in one piece,” Tony says, already rising higher into the sky. The beat of silence from all parties listening is exactly what he expects.

“Looks like someone learned a lesson about our large, explosive bombs,” Clint groans. Tony has considered that this invasion has something to do with the last, but by necessity he’s been focusing harder on winning than he has on an interconnected explanation of events.

“It’ll be better if it comes down in pieces. More clean-up, but at least it won’t take out half of Manhattan when it lands. If I can make a big enough explosion—”

“Do it,” Natasha snaps, jumping ahead of him.

“What?” Clint queries, confused.

“I can remote-pilot the suit up there and detonate the arc reactor,” he explains. There are good, clean ways of destroying the reactors that result only in an explosion the size of an old Volkswagen Beetle, and then there are catastrophically bad ways that should serve exactly the right purpose in this situation.

“It’s the best plan we have right now—” Steve starts, but the rest of his sentence is lost to Tony when he’s pounced on unexpectedly by something snarling and vicious with needle-sharp claws the length of his forearm. He realizes he’s been surrounded by more of the same, huge aggressive versions of the smaller cousins they’ve been fighting so far.

“Tony!” Steve shouts. He’s already running for the place where he saw the flash of red and gold go down, but finds more of the creatures barring his path at every turn. It’s slow going and by the time he makes it where he's going, Tony is back on his feet and firing blast after blast into the faces of the things advancing on him. There’s a deep gash in the armor that runs all the way from his helmet to his waist, but Steve has no way of knowing how deep it goes.

“You okay?” he shouts, slamming his shield into the side of the nearest one’s head.

“Fine,” Tony yells back. “But I have bad news.”

+

“I am unable to fix the remote piloting system,” JARVIS informs him calmly inside the helmet. “The suit can only be manually piloted in its current condition.” It means that all the basic things like flying and repulsors are functioning, but Tony can’t control the suit without being in it and JARVIS can’t do it for him. All the special features that JARVIS normally controls are also offline which essentially leaves Tony with nothing but the basics.

“Another wave incoming,” Clint tells them from his perch. They can’t keep taking this forever, Tony knows. Their options are bad enough as it is and putting it off any longer isn’t going to magically open up any new opportunities.

“Not again,” he says so that no one but JARVIS can hear him. “Please, not this again.”

He calls Pepper and she answers almost immediately.

“You picked up,” he says because suddenly, he’s not sure what to say.

“Of course I did,” she blurts, trying to smile at him through her worry. She leans back and reveals that Happy and Rhodey are there too, crowding into the video frame so that he can see them. Unexpectedly, that’s what makes him grin.

“I just wanted to warn you I might be about to do something incredibly stupid,” he ends up saying after a moment and winces at the concerned stares he gets in response.

“Throw a good party at my funeral,” he instructs and then hangs up because he’s too much of a coward to watch what that statement does to them.

“Tony,” Natasha is the first to contact him as he shoots up into the air.

“What are you doing?” Steve demands a moment later.

“Change of plans,” Tony replies casually.

“ _Tony_.”

He expects his heart rate to climb as his altitude does, expects his breath to speed and his fingers to shake like they have every time he thinks too hard about the first time he did this. But instead he feels a strange kind of focused calm, all the details of what he needs to do clicking into place in his brain as easy as breathing. He doesn’t want to die, but he wants everyone else to die even less and that’s all that matters.

The smooth expanse of the ship gets bigger and bigger until it fills his field of vision, stark gray and silver against the vibrant reds and blues of his HUD. There aren’t any stars this time, no wormhole or horrible, screeching hoards of enemies pouring down towards him in droves.

Then, all of a sudden, Loki pops into existence right in his path and for a split second Tony doesn’t register this fact because it’s so unexpected. But his pause is just long enough for Loki to grab hold of the suit and _push._

An urgent alert pops up in the HUD and JARVIS starts telling him with calm, clipped syllables about the sudden drop in thruster power from nearly a hundred to zero in under four milliseconds. They’re falling and a moment later Tony’s back collides with the hard surface of his own tower and something heavy and clad in black and gold lands on top of him. The suit makes the impact felt, but not painful and also severely limits his ability to figure out what the fuck is going on because being on his back in the suit makes him significantly less agile than being on his feet does.

Loki climbs off and stands up in a rush, expression full of rage and it looks like he’s about to yell at Tony except that Tony beats him to it.

“What the hell was that!” Tony shouts, getting to his feet as quickly as he’s able. He might just have enough time to try again if he gets moving right away.

“I was saving your miserable life, you _idiot,_ ” Loki yells back.

“I’m the only one who can stop that ship!” Tony argues, gesturing at it like Loki hasn’t noticed the shape blocking out half the sky.

Loki doesn’t snap back at him like he expects, only turns his focus on the ship with a vicious determination. Then he’s gone, leaving a tell-tale smear of gold color in his wake that Tony hasn’t seen since the fight with the Chitauri. He spends a surprised moment wondering what that’s supposed to mean and then Cap’s voice sparks to life over the comm channel.

“Iron Man, what happened?” he barks, all Captain America instead of Steve Rogers. Tony really doesn’t want to bring up Loki, not now, but Natasha butts in just then to save him without meaning to.

“I just saw Thor.”

“There’s someone with him,” Clint reports just after. “I don’t want to say it, but it looks a lot like Loki.”

“It is,” Tony confirms with relief, too flooded with adrenaline and determination to really acknowledge the rising feeling of hope that this time Loki is really here in the flesh and to top it all off, he’s _helping_ them.

Clint swears and Natasha says something brief in Russian that’s too fast for the live translation program Tony is alpha testing in his suit to catch. But it’s all forgotten the moment that lightning arcs across the sky, bigger than anything Tony has ever seen Thor summon before, and so close that the deafening boom of thunder comes almost simultaneously with the sight of it.

The outer layer of heavily shielded panels on the ship warp and curl, some blackening as they fall off in a rain of smoking metal. Into the tear goes Loki with a spear they’ve never seen before in his hands.

It’s a strange way to end a battle, watching someone else deal the final blows while you can’t do anything but wait and hope. Tony wonders if this was what it was like for the rest of the team last time except that, selfishly, he thinks he has it worse because of what Loki means to him.

Thor laughs with joy as he watches his lightning scar the surface of the vessel. It is a large enemy to be sure, but it is only one ship and he and Loki have been fighting for weeks to get here. They are both different people now than they were as children or even as young men, but it took them no more than a few days in the beginning to learn to fight together again and Thor feels the way they are so much stronger than ever before.

Loki charges into the hole his brother made, magic already tingling under his fingertips. He’d promised himself many times during his imprisonment that never again would he do something to appease anyone’s expectations apart from his own, and yet already he is considering all the ways to reduce the damage the crashing of this ship will do to the city simply because he knows Tony would want it that way.

The solution he devises is both simple and deliciously wicked. It is magic that no one else in all the history of Asgard could have done, but Loki has spent months doing nothing but study the very forms of magic itself. That and fall catastrophically for a mortal man, but that’s not the point. The books his mother sent him were not books of spells to memorize, nor exercises to help him repeat magic designed by those who came before. They were books on the very theory of magic itself, on all the ways it might be possible to bend the raw fabric of the universe to his will in any way he pleases if only he can grasp it between his fingers. It’s a grand, complex theory has has never been proven until now.

From the ground, the Avengers and startled onlookers alike watch as the hulking mass of the thing attacking them ripples, and then with the screech of tearing metal begins to curl in on itself. Tony’s HUD readings go haywire, filling with impossible data about an event that can’t be happening according to every law of physics known to mankind.

Sure, he and Bruce have stayed up late together and complained in the way scientists do about all the holes in their knowledge of the universe and about how The Theory of Everything would be fantastic if only someone could figure out how to combine general relativity and quantum mechanics. But this is in a whole new league; this is a large scale event happening before his eyes that just _isn’t possible_.

There’s a sudden wind from behind and an odd popping noise as all the air displaced by the ship gets sucked back into the now empty space it once occupied and in the middle of it all is Loki, expression smug though he’s too far away for anyone to see it.

“That was… weirdly anti-climactic,” Clint says hesitantly over the comm channel.

“Are you kidding me? That was incredible,” Tony laughs and then adds, “I might have a science boner right now” just to hear Clint’s barking laugh and Steve’s sigh.

“We’re not done yet. The ship is gone but there are still a lot of enemies roaming the streets,” Steve says soberly. He sounds like the rest of them feel: exhausted and like he’d rather do anything but clean up the stragglers. But they’re the heroes, it’s what they do. They can’t very well leave a few thousand police officers to hunt down creatures twice their size with handguns.

“I’ll flag down Thor and let him know,” Clint replies.

“Hulk is nearby, I’ll see what I can do,” Natasha adds.

“I’ll do the vigilante justice thing and roam the streets looking for fights to start with ugly aliens,” Tony adds and moves to the edge of the deck. JARVIS has long since fixed whatever it was that Loki took offline to drag him out of the sky, so he powers up the thrusters and arcs off into the airspace over New York to take down whatever he encounters.

“We need a better plan than this,” Tony groans into the communicator. It’s been hours and it seems like every one of his muscles is about ready to give in, powered suit or no. When he mentioned luck to Clint, maybe he should have been discussing the way that the Chitauri had all dropped down, lifeless, the moment the wormhole had closed. That had been true luck and it’s luck they don’t have now.

“I’m open to ideas,” Steve replies and even he sounds out of breath.

“There are just so goddamn many of them,” Clint complains. He’s fighting side by side with Natasha now that’s he’s run out of arrows and can’t find any more to recycle.

“Return to your tower. They will follow,” the command comes over the speakers and how the fuck Loki tapped into their comms is something Tony really wants to know.

“Like hell. I don’t need these things crawling up the inside of my tower after us,” Tony snaps back. He hears the sound of Loki’s annoyed huff before he continues.

“These creatures are capable of adapting their body shape. You are fighting them on the ground, so they are strong. Climb to that height and they will grow wings.”

“Perfect, just what we need, flying enemies,” Clint interjects sarcastically.

“It might not be a terrible idea. We can resupply and there won’t be buildings or civilians in the way up there,” Natasha says next, always the voice of reason.

Thor doesn’t have his comm which is frustrating, but there’s the vague, muffled sound of his voice and then Steve says, “Thor still has plenty of lightning left” a little too seriously for what Tony is pretty sure was Thor’s idea of a joke.

“Up we go then. I’ll pick up Widow and Hawkeye,” Tony says, turning in a sharp curve to head towards their location.

It doesn’t take long for them to assemble on the larger of the Stark Tower decks, all save for the Hulk who stays down below and swings his big, green fists at anything unfortunate enough to come close to the base of the tower. Loki’s prediction comes true and soon enough they’re surrounded by a swarm of angry, flying enemies on all sides.

“One last push,” Steve instructs with grim determination. There’s blood down the side of his face, streaming from a deep gash that splits the fabric of his cowl on the left side of his face. Natasha and Clint don’t look any better, both covered in a myriad of minor cuts and bruises. Clint had a moment of cheerfulness when he showed up toting several spare quivers of arrows, but it disappeared the moment he saw what they were up against. The shape Tony’s suit is in isn’t bad, all things considered, but it far from fantastic and there’s something wrong with the wiring in his right repulsor that has the power dipping down below five percent at random intervals. JARVIS hasn’t had any luck rerouting it, so he’s just going to have to deal with it.

“Nice knowing you guys,” Tony says with false levity, watching as thousands of volts of electricity arc through the sky around the tower. They’re letting Thor do as much as he can first, thinning the enemies as much as he is buying them time. Once they join the fray, he’ll have to be a lot more careful. They haven’t seen Loki since he first destroyed the ship, but he must be around somewhere if he’s listening in on their conversations and bossing them around.

That question is answered about a minute and a half later when Loki steps out of a smear of green and gold, falling into step seamlessly as though he hasn’t just appeared from thin air. He throws Tony a look, but the curve of his helmet around his face makes it difficult to determine just what that look means.

He’s about to say something, but that’s when the first dozen or so enemies slip past Thor’s lightning, screeching their fury for all to hear. Loki swings, spear-tip slicing through the air in a wide arc that rends two of the creatures in half like a knife through butter. Tony doesn’t find violence attractive, he really doesn’t, but Loki in motion like this, radiating power from every gesture is something he has a hard time looking away from.

“Incoming!” Steve shouts in warning and then they’re all fighting. Tony spares a moment to lament the destruction of his tower all over again, but thinks that at least it might not be as bad as last time if they win.

There’s a long period of time where Tony loses track of Loki and then all of a sudden he’s there right behind him, following the pattern of appearing and disappearing unexpectedly like he always has before.

“I forbid you from this practice of trying to sacrifice yourself,” Loki spits angrily at him between savage blows.

“Yeah, well, you can fuck off,” Tony says, too distracted to come up with a good zinger of a response.

He’s pretty sure he hears some very unsavory things said about his mother as Loki makes his way over to where Thor is fighting half a dozen creatures at once so he shouts, “Love you too, sweetheart” sarcastically after Loki’s retreating back just to see the poisonous glare he gets in return.

When Steve said “one final push” he probably didn’t expect it to come in the form of Loki getting so angry and so fed up with the whole affair that he destroys the very last hundred or so of their enemies with a single fell stroke of his weapon and his magic combined.

There’s a terrible moment where Tony thinks the bodies are going to explode in a spray of gore, but the reality is almost more disturbing. They simply drop, right out of the sky or from their feet into heaps of motionless, lifeless flesh with no marks on them to hint at their demise. It’s like watching a puppet having its strings cut.

Loki turns to face them, long coat-tails swinging around his legs with the abruptness of it. There's a sharpness to his eye that Tony recognizes as purpose, but not hostility. But from the way Steve tenses a pace ahead of him and a step to his left, he realizes the rest of the team doesn't know that.

“This does not make me your ally,” Loki says, loud and sharp. “I am not your friend. I do not owe you a debt and may not help you in the future. You would be soft to believe otherwise.”

Natasha snorts softly as if to say she would never. Clint's fingers twitch on the string of his undrawn bow, arrow held between his fingers, ready to be pulled and fired faster than a heartbeat. Loki may have saved them today, but he is the first enemy they fought together and the one etched into each of their hearts and minds for a different reason.

Then Tony laughs and the atmosphere shifts abruptly, all attention drawn to him. He is the king of inappropriate timing and although his friends know it already, they look at him sternly, words of reprimand ready on some of their tongues.

He lifts the faceplate of his helmet and takes a step towards Loki, shoulders thrown back and exuding as much casual bravado as he can from within the confines of the suit. Loki tenses, brows drawing together in an expression of confusion and concern. He still hasn't fully mastered the art of figuring out what Tony is thinking.

Another step and Tony smiles when he hears the sharp intake of breath from Steve beside him and the muttered “Tony” meant only for his ears.

“The villainous monologue is wonderful and all, really, and you’re great at it. But today I'm just not buying it,” he says, grinning ear to ear. He looks around for effect, pauses, and says, “is it just me?” The faces that look back at him range from bewildered to resigned, but it's only when he returns his gaze to Loki that he sees even a hint of humor in the curl of his lips.

“You have a distinct talent for running your mouth. I swear I could hear you all the way in Asgard,” Loki drawls and doesn't stop Tony as he steps right into Loki's personal space. The added height of the suit brings them almost eye-to-eye, and though he is a god and many thousands of years older, Loki still feels the power of this man.

“How weird is that? I thought I could hear the sound of your bullshit all the way down here,” Tony says, grin shifting subtly into a smirk.

“How boring, accusing the God of Lies of speaking falsehoods as if it’s some kind of revelation,” Loki sighs dramatically, lifting fingers to trace the ring of the arc reactor that runs Tony's suit. He feels the hum of power and laments that there won't be an answering hum just a few inches underneath it when Tony removes the chest plate. He knows very well why Tony made that choice, but the texture and taste of the strange blue power on his tongue, mixing with his magic, is something he won't soon forget.

“See something you like?” Tony chuckles, noticing Loki’s eyes drop to his chest.

“Oh, plenty of things. You wouldn't be able to resist me this time if I ripped off this suit,” Loki murmurs, slow and lazy, almost bored. It sounds like a threat and Tony swears he can feel the wave of tension from the others as they wait for something terrible to happen.

“I think I lost that battle a while ago,” Tony says and immediately hates himself for how it falls short of a real innuendo and comes out hopelessly cheesy instead. But Loki still smiles at him and it's the same mocking, almost-cruel one he's had since day one. But there are also barely discernible wrinkles around his eyes that speak of genuine pleasure which Tony only has a moment to examine before Loki is kissing him, deep and shameless in front of everyone.

Tony's kissed Loki before and he's always taken precisely what he wanted, strong and claiming like no one else Tony has ever kissed. But this time is worse than ever, Loki nearly biting at his lips in a way that Tony quickly identifies as possessiveness and maybe just a little left over aggression from the battle Loki just fought. He decides to fight fire with water and twists fingers into Loki's clothing, kissing him back just as hard but wet and sweet until he feels Loki relax just a little and settle into a rhythm that’s only slightly kinder like a compromise.

Vaguely, Tony identifies the sound of over-dramatic gagging and he's fairly certain it's Clint. Natasha jabs him in the ribs sharply, making him yelp and go mutinously silent, but her eyes are still trained on the pair of them, caught between her amusement and a thousand threads of suspicion and strategy because she was a spy before she was a superhero and knows too much about betrayal. Steve looks confused, like he knows men sometimes date other men, but never quite put that and Tony together, or else like he's just horrified that Tony would dare make out with a magical super-villain in front of all of them. It’s a toss-up which is the truth.

There's a beat in which no one is quite sure what to do, and then Bruce stumbles into the room mostly naked and bursts into laughter at the sight that greets him. It’s a rare and startling sound from him, even on the best of days and doubly so now. But he knows Tony better than the rest of them in some ways and remembers the look on Tony's face when he'd come sulking onto Bruce's lab what feels like forever ago looking for an MRI and thinly disguised advice.

“When you said you had befriended him, this was not what I expected,” Thor rumbles from somewhere closer to the edge of the balcony and Tony feels the answering smirk, sharp and gleeful against his mouth.


End file.
